Oblivion
by respectablealcoholic
Summary: PART TWO of the Heresy series. As Bonnie's escape plan unfolds, her mental state troubles Kai, who finds himself in an unfamiliar role. Living in a prison world is harder than it used to be while emotions surface and complicate. A sacrifice must be made, but who will make it and what will be lost?
1. Chapter 1

_You can come in._

However hesitant the words sounded, Kai heard them. And they came from _her_ mouth.

 _You can come in_.

He stepped, ever so cautiously, through her doorway. Right foot first, delicate on the hardwood, hands low at his sides and fingers feeling out the doorframe as he crossed it, left foot now. They looked at one another for a moment and he took the time to relish: her fingers twitching at her sides, her nervous eyes with the brows arced at him in brace for what he might do to her, his own heart beating so hard it crept up into his throat and he couldn't say a word. He swallowed. If he was still human, he'd be sweating.

What indeed _would_ he do to her now?

He could hear her human little heart rioting in the most adorable way. It aroused that familiar burning in his gums. Salivating, he tongued the sharp little tips of his fangs descending and clenched his back teeth. _Go back in, go back in_. For as starved as he still felt, it was only minutes ago that she last fed him.

The widening of her eyes pulled him out of thought and he realized his own eyes must be turning color in hunger. He took another step, further into her house, closer to her. Her mouth hung open in what he could only assume was residual lust from what he started in her bedroom and hadn't yet finished. He felt it too, curling wickedly inside him. He didn't know what possessed him to walk away in the middle of all the moves he was trying to put on her, only to give back her invitation barrier at the risk of being turned away and getting stuck with blue balls all night. No, he didn't know for sure what made him so stupid suddenly, but he guessed it was guilt. She told him she missed him too, and a subsequent flood of wrongdoings, including his unofficial presence in her house, invaded his mind and something abstract inside him screamed at him to do something morally upstanding. Like he had a conscience or something. Luke, breaking through, perhaps.

Thank _hell_ she invited him in.

And now somehow his night swelled like a bruise with meaning. First, it was her admittance. To hear that he was missed while he was gone. That was new. Giving her barrier back was an unplanned spur of the moment decision and he had mere seconds to come to terms with self-disgust, mere seconds to hope she would react to his disgusting kindness in his favor. Littler time to realize that if she did, if Bonnie welcomed him into her safe space, he couldn't just ram her against the foyer wall and ravage her the way he wanted. He couldn't just walk into her home, a new man, and assume it was sexy time. Though it probably was. There was too much meaning. He couldn't handle it. It weirded him out.

The level of weird he was drowning in had him standing rather awkwardly, hardly a pace from the door, not knowing how much time had passed since he was invited in, how long he'd been staring at her or why his hands were shaking. But the ground was slowly coming back to his feet.

In two strides he closed the distance between them.

"Kai," she warned, raising her hands and taking steps back. Ignoring her retreat, he clasped both sides of her ribcage.

"Bonnie," he growled in response, tightening his grip and lowering his mouth to her neck.

"I just don't want to be alone again," her voice hummed on his lips as he pressed them against her throat, "That's all."

"Never," he rumbled into her pulsating carotid. Desire he felt for her that had been building monstrously during their time apart burned in his belly. She whimpered his name again in protest and he felt himself, below, already rising to the occasion. Other than her whimper, he couldn't help but notice she wasn't really reacting to him, which spurred him on to try even harder to stir some kind of movement on her end. He started a trail of kisses from her neck up the back of her jaw, landing on her ear. Moving his lips against her delicate ear bones, he whispered, "I won't leave you alone ever again, I promise. Not for the rest of eternity, Bonnie Bennett." And he grazed his more harmless teeth along the outer edge of her ear, smiling as an involuntary wisp of a moan played stowaway on one of her breaths.

One of her hands curled around his wrist in seeming encouragement, contradictory as it was. She didn't use her hand to urge his exploration of her, or pull it away. She just held him, slack to follow his movements, and it was enough. The soft, warm flesh of her palm and fingers on his cold skin comforted in a way she couldn't know, because he knew he'd never find the words to define it. He was so used to being pushed away he could hardly recognize this feeling. He couldn't interpret the sensation in his chest as anything other than uplifting. It was just good enough to arouse suspicion, and this slithered silently in between the positive things he allowed her gesture to make him feel. And from the darker depths of his mind, his old self mouthed his doubts. _Choke her until she croaks how she really feels about you._ And why was she being so lifeless? _Go on, wring her_.

"No," he argued out loud before he could stop himself. He felt his own voice reverberate against his lips from her ear and stilled. She might find this sudden parapraxis discomforting. He had to wonder just how dormant his old self was.

To his abrupt stillness, she seemed to liven, shifting her shoulder underneath his chin and regaining a normal pace of breath. "What?" she asked.

"Um," he stalled, pulling back from her in the hope that straightening his head on his shoulders literally would do the same figuratively. "No…" he teetered on his own outburst, waiting for the rest of any sentence to arrive, "way. No way. You're letting me in." _Nice save_ , he thought, mentally high fiving himself. To reward himself, he leaned back into her. He curled his knuckles in a rough caress down her body, thinking again how truly heartening it felt to be invited. He wanted to tell her so without going too soft. Maybe he could tell her in the sideswiping medium of _sweet nothings_ , a sweet little offhand remark made in the midst of seducing her so that she'd hear it and shortly afterward, because she was Bonnie, dismiss it as nothing.

"Bonnie, you have no idea what this means to—"

"I wanna leave town," she interrupted, balling up her shoulders, which succeeded in butting him out of her bubble. Acclimating to the slight rejection, he bit his lip and narrowed his eyes down at her as he let go of his _sweet nothing_ and heard what she said in delay. "Tomorrow," she concluded, resolutely. Kai, not believing his ears, just stared.

"And where are we going?" he asked, very curious.

She glared. " _We_?"

He gave her a dull look that was meant to say _You know you can't get rid of me_ , and she rolled her eyes.

"I don't know. Anywhere but here," she sighed, and added, "Not Portland," when he opened his mouth to make a suggestion. And he was fine with that. He had some desire to see how his childhood home looked now but it could wait for the next time they fought big and she pushed him away. Portland could be saved for a solo trip.

A wide grin slowly crept from ear to ear, "You really wanna leave good old Mystic Falls behind?"

Bonnie nodded. "It's time."

Kai considered this. Abandoning Mystic Falls in all its boring home-town glory had been a hope lurking in the back of his mind. Sure, he would miss it for the few things it meant to him. The place they met, the porches turned haunts, the bar where he first drank from her. The whole town served in his memory as the courting grounds on which their relationship was cultivated. Between 1994, the real world and their prison, the small expanse of Mystic Falls was where it all happened. All that first-sight charm that literally awakened Bonnie's magic, the terror of a time he put her through after Damon left, the few days he spent holed up in debilitating guilt when he heard that Bonnie made it out of his prison world, realizing the weight of emotion when it bowed off another person, realizing this Bennett witch out of nowhere struck a chord in him that had never been stricken and that it made a pretty sound, falling apart at the seams for someone for the first time in his life and feeling the pain, the real pain, and all the self-discovery and betrayal and prison-world designing and massacring that followed. What a place.

Then again, he wasn't one to get sentimental. To Hell with Mystic Falls and on with the new.

"We can't leave until tomorrow night," he finally said.

"I know."

"Unless you feel like being a doll and making me a daylight ring."

"Don't get your hopes up."

"You want to travel by night? Fine with me. I'm just looking out for you, being a human and a creature of the sun and all."

"I'll manage."

"I mean, the Eiffel tower probably looks amazeballs in the daytime, just saying."

He could see Bonnie struggling to maintain a serious face, and felt his heart flutter as she failed miserably and broke into a minor giggle. " _Amazeballs_? Really? Of all the twenty first century terms to pick up on, you let _amazeballs_ enter your vocabulary?"

He shrugged, "That and _selfie_. And _swole_. And _sexorcism_. And _procrasturbating_. And _food porn_. And _food horny_. And _foodrection_. That one's my favorite."

"It would be."

He smirked.

"Anyway," Bonnie said, shifting the mood down, "We should go to bed."

He perked at the mention.

"Separately," she vehemently clarified. "As in I'm going to bed, and you can go to couch."

"Oh, havoc's in the house, Bon. You invited me in, there's no controlling me now."

"I mean it, Kai. I'm not over what you did to me. It's pretty fucked up. Really. You've officially done your worst, so congrats. I'll never trust you after this, I hope you know. I'll never fully not hate you, and I shouldn't have invited you in, I shouldn't have let you back into my life at all, but—"

"But you had to."

She frowned and nodded blankly. "Right."

"I get it," he said genuinely, because her having no better option than to let him back in her life was all part of the design.

"So…there's a stack of blankets in the hall closet. Just um… _please_ …don't leave."

"Or what?"

Her eyes widened in what looked like an unexpected panic washing over her at the potential threat to leave her alone in the house again.

"Whoa," he held up his palms in surrender, "I won't go," he assured. "I'll stay."

She exhaled and he noticed for the first time how much more visible her clavicles seemed to be since the last time he saw her. She had lost weight in his absence, a sign to him that a hearty breakfast in bed was loudly called for.

"Goodnight kiss?" he offered. She pursed her lips and backed slowly out of the room without another word, making it clear she'd had enough of him for the night. He shrugged. _Progress_.

The rustling sounds of Bonnie tucking herself away in bed entered his vampiric hearing and he figured he might as well sleep too. He found the closet and the blankets she was referring to and made a bed on the couch, shrugging out of his blazer and kicking his shoes off before getting as comfortable as a guy could get in a shirt and jeans.

But he couldn't sleep.

He listened to her breathing far off become a calm pattern as he laid awake, and in little time noticed something was snaking into his nervous system, something that wouldn't allow for his fangs not to emerge or the hunger broiling inside him cool down. He inhaled deeply and noticed there was a latent scent of blood in the house. The sheets on her bed were his first thought. He tended to be a messy eater. Remembering this, he let himself relax into the couch with every intention of getting lost in thoughts of what _could be_ happening if he never restored her invitation barrier or left her bedroom to begin with. Flashes of her thighs spread out before him and her _oh_ -ing lips when he pushed into her…

Mutely he wondered if she changed them or if she was just casually sleeping on dramatically bloodstained sheets. That blood smell just wouldn't get out of his nose. He opened wide and cracked his jaw, stretching his lips back to let the incessant fangs breathe. As badass as he felt in the beginning, these fangs were more and more a source of irritation. He was raised as witches should be: not to bow down before vampires, let alone become one. With the promise of amplified magic via siphoning from the vampirism, he thought he could get past the petty details and the ingrained values of his upbringing. But it was beginning to agitate him just a little.

He realized grumpily he wouldn't be able to relax until he investigated the smell. Bonnie wouldn't be too pleased to be woken up by him tugging her sheets out from underneath her, but they had to wash. If she wasn't going to feed him in order to lessen the intense need sparked by the smell, they had to wash. Now.

He rose from the couch. Eyes on the prize, he made his way in the direction of her bedroom, oddly unable to be a real vampire and not cause a thousand loud creaks in the hardwood as he walked. He passed by the kitchen, noting mentally to raid it later, when something caught his eye. He took a step back and didn't have to lean too far into the room to see the horror.

Blood, darkly, spattered the greater surface of the kitchen counter and cabinets. None was smeared and all of it appeared to have flecked its place from one single blow. Some sat in a caked pool on the floor. It was undoubtedly the scene of murder. Only there wasn't a body. Because the body that had been murdered there was back to life, and sound asleep in her bed.

"Oh, fuck," he whispered.


	2. Chapter 2

Falling asleep with a killer down the hall was surprisingly easier than falling asleep completely alone. Bonnie was able to run through all of her pre-sleep thoughts in record time, even when most of them revolved around the defensible concern that Kai would disregard her personal space sometime in the hours to come. It crossed her mind less as a possibility than an anticipated event that he would end up in her room before she left it next, but how he would justify it remained a question. He was fed and he was warned, so what excuse would he come up with to worm his way in against her wishes?

It was indeed a mistake that she invited him in, but an honest one? Not so much. As seriously as she impressed upon him and admonished herself that they were not sleeping together, she noticed herself tossing. A naughty little scenario in which Kai snuck into her bed while she slept and—

 _Stop_.

—fastened his mouth on her neck like he did in the foyer and—

 _Not happening_.

—bit her awake, wrapped his arms around her from behind and—

 _Go to sleep, Bonnie_.

—ripped her panties because he had no patience, and because he didn't plan on taking any nonsense he was already out, and he stole his way up into her body just as fluidly as he stole into her room.

 _Fuck_. She wanted him. And damn it all to hell if she let that happen again, but she could imagine him taking her so vividly that she could feel her cunt, like muscle memory, warping around the very idea of his sex.

Bonnie began to slide her hands down from their resting place on her chest. The only thing that could and did stop them in their thigh-ward path was a rough interruption in the skin. She had gotten good at avoiding it over the last year but occasionally did, on accident, touch the scar on her abdomen. As typically happened when she touched or looked at it, the whole 1994 trauma came tumbling back but it occurred to her for the first time to wonder if Kai ever noticed the blemish he caused during either one of the two times they had sex. And if so, did it make him feel anything? Because that scar had the power to make her feel everything. She needed only to glance at it and all the wonder wringing her heart washed away, reminding her of the bottom line: Kai was bad for her.

"Damn you," she whispered to dead space.

She still wanted to touch herself, but after the pause given to her by the scar, she knew better. He would hear. And naturally he would attend the show. Then inevitably all the lines she drew between them would be crossed and she would hate herself even more. So she turned on her back, stretched her hands above her head, stuffed them underneath her pillow and muttered a binding spell on herself. In due time she was thinking about the next day, and where they would go, and sleep ran away with her.

* * *

Kai looked no further than the little pistol on the ground to solve the case. Bonnie must have killed herself sometime recently and forgotten to clean up the consequences. In her defense, she wasn't expecting visitors.

Would it be insulting to clean the blood for her? He wasn't sure. So he didn't, only making a mental note to steer clear of the kitchen, a very backwards practice for him.

He debated returning to the couch, having located the source of the smell and the reason he got up in the first place. But he wanted nothing more than to see her right that second, to look upon her sleeping face and contrast the beauty there with the devastating mess he wasn't meant to see.

He continued on to Bonnie's bedroom.

She slept heavily, as he guessed, right on top of the bloody sheets like she had forgotten, or didn't care. It didn't strike Kai as a very Bonnie thing to do. But neither did blowing her brains out for no evident reason. There weren't any wonderful Mystic Falls friends in her prison world to martyr herself for. A deep pang started in his stomach at the realization that the only other person there to hurt or comfort Bonnie was him. Did she kill herself because of him? Or was she just bored? He needed more than two hands to count the amount of times he'd killed himself in 1994 out of boredom, and that was just boredom. Angst had its own tally. And sometimes he had accidents. But Bonnie didn't pick up a pistol and shoot herself by accident. It was left to him to decide, to decipher in her demeanor what the reason was.

As he lay down beside her and found himself haunted by the mess still waiting in the kitchen, no longer thirsting, disturbed by the casual suicide and altogether freaked out…he realized he might be the saner one for once. He couldn't like it. He stared all morning and afternoon at the ceiling devising plans, designing an intervention, writing his lines for the conversation in which he would need to carefully, almost surgically, pull Bonnie apart so that he may reassemble her as he knew her.

The dying sun, through her curtains, fell dangerously warm on his face as he watched it. He turned on his side so he could trace the length of her spine with his fingertips. She breathed evenly, still asleep. He enjoyed the way his chest ached when she laid against him so unguarded. Not a twitch in her calm form hinted that she sensed him for some time and she kept sleeping. Seeing the wine glass and empty bottle on her nightstand, he guessed she was already very tired when he climbed through her window to give her the cigarettes.

At last her skin, beneath her t-shirt, beneath his fingers, shivered to life. He stilled his hand. Her back swelled with a deep breath. After a moment, she turned and faced him. He couldn't look at her the same as he had before, like all the blood in the kitchen was a film over his eyes and he wasn't looking at Bonnie anymore, but a redder shade of her.

She didn't look surprised to see him there. He expected more of an outburst, or at least a glare. She turned her head a fraction in the other direction and murmured something incoherent.

"What was that?" he asked, to no response.

Both her hands emerged from underneath her pillow and she rubbed her eyes, keeping them covered for a moment before clasping them on her chest and returning her gaze to him.

"Did you sleep at all?" she asked, her voice corroded with sleep.

"Nope."

"You should get some rest, don't you think?"

"Can't. Too wicked," he reminded her, staring warily into her glazed, unamused eyes.

"How original."

"We should go," he said, wanting nothing more than to see her up and functioning like her normal self.

"It's still light out."

"We should get ready."

"I'm still tired."

"Well snap out of it. The world awaits. And I need muffins."

"You and food," she groaned, rolling to bury her face into her pillow.

"I can't lie, I have a pretty masterful foodrection right now."

He heard Bonnie's muffled howl of laughter and watched her body writhe in a fit of it. He couldn't help but smile at this. He could ruin her life and still make her laugh afterward.

He sat up. "Come on, get up," he urged, trying to sound excited.

"I need to change. I think all my clothes are dirty." She groaned, "Why did you let me sleep with a bra on?"

"Didn't know that was my responsibility, but I'll gladly add it to the top of my list. Now come on."

"Help me."

"What?"

She was arching her back and twisting her arms around, trying to unclasp her bra without sitting up. It was both pitiful and sexy. Dare he help? He watched her press the top of her head into the pillows as she tried and failed to take her own bra off.

"Are you drunk?"

"I just woke up!" she snapped. Her voice contained a hint of the anger he was familiar with. Strangely it was a good thing to hear. Her judgmental side was still intact, and it was judging him for judging her. Maybe she wasn't so far gone.

"I'm not a girl or anything, but aren't you supposed to put a bra _on_ before you leave? Not that I'd be complaining—"

"Kai."

"Fine," he groaned as he reached for her back and in one deft movement the bra was unhooked. She moaned in relief.

"Skills," he whispered. Bonnie rolled to lie on her back and looked up at him. The way she relaxed into the mattress informed him that she had no intention of getting up anytime soon. Wondering just what her plans were, he asked, "What now?"

"I still hate you," she stated.

"Thank you for reminding me. I almost forgot about that for a split fucking second."

"You're welcome."

"Are you going to get up, or…"

"I won't sleep in this bed for a long time. I just need a minute."

"Should I leave you two alone?"

She shook her head. He looked longingly toward the window and the sun's light was gone. They needed to leave. He needed to herd her out of the house before either one of them found a reason to enter the kitchen. Now that she was awake, the idea of confronting her made him nervous. This feeling of having something to say and no courage to say it made him uncomfortable, and frustrated. The old him would've had no problem breaking it down for Bonnie that killing herself, despite it being temporary, wasn't good. Although the old him probably wouldn't care to begin with. Not if it didn't affect his wellbeing. Nowadays it clearly did, never mind the temporariness. It worried him.

Something soft and warm glided over his hand; it was hers. He looked back to her and she was glaring and biting her lip. Whether she was angry or turned on, he couldn't tell. But he let her hands envelope his and guide it underneath her shirt. The smoothness of the skin on her abdomen and the warmth of her emanating magic dazed him.

"What are you doing?" he asked, pained.

"I want you to feel something."

He clenched his jaw, "I feel a lot of things."

"I mean this," she said, as she clutched his hand to a stop over something rough and leathery knotted in the skin he'd just admired for its smoothness. He knew what it was. Guilt flooded.

"Have you ever felt this?" she asked.

"I don't—"

"Have you?" she pressed, her voice cracking.

"Bonnie…"

"Answer me!"

"No," he answered firmly. "I've wanted to. But I didn't want to upset you."

Without needing to scrunch her face, several tears welled up from her eyes and ran down her cheekbones. She wiped them up instantly.

"Did you mean what you said at the rave?"

 _I wanted to apologize for anything I did that hurt you_.

"Yes." He thumbed the scar affectionately.

"Why?" she questioned, her eyes hurting, curious slits, intent on hearing a right answer from him.

"I don't know, Bonnie. Why does anyone ever apologize?"

"Because they feel guilty."

"I did. I wish you believed me then. Again, we might not be here."

"How can you say that?"

"I'm just saying, if you knew how to accept an apology then maybe instead of storming out of that rave, throwing threats around all willy-nilly and showing off, we could've..." he trailed off.

"What? We could have what? Gotten to know each other better? Gone out for Starbucks and talked shit about the Heretics? Tried dating?"

"D, all of the above?"

"That's not how it works. People usually do all of that before they try to kill each other, not vice versa."

"We're not like most people."

"Don't lump me in with you. We're nothing alike."

"And yet…"

"What?"

"I guess you didn't need to believe me for us to do all of those things in our own fucked up order. We've done it anyway."

"We're not friends. And we will never date."

Kai smiled off to the side, "Okay, Bon."

"You think I'm joking?"

"No. I believe that you believe you mean it."

She sighed and pressed her lips together. He looked down to his hand moving beneath her shirt as he noticed he was still circling his thumb over the scar while they talked. Using his other hand, he started to slowly draw her shirt up. He just wanted to see. He glanced back and forth between her exposed belly and her sad eyes, surprised that she let him keep going. Not wanting to push his luck, he stopped where her breasts began.

He looked to her eyes once more and she averted her gaze downward when their pupils met. Something like shame, or embarrassment, or weakness, he couldn't place it…dimmed in her eyes. He wanted to apologize a thousand more times, or to be told explicitly how to undo the trauma. But he couldn't and she wouldn't, and soon they were both looking to the scar for answers.

The scar tissue was lighter than the skin around it. He continued circling his thumb over the whorl, lightly, while he thought back to the moment he created it. Bonnie had just killed him and he woke up alone, the eclipse nearing. She and Damon were going to leave him behind and all he could feel was shear panic. The coincidence that a Bennett witch just fell into his lap was a once-in-a-forever opportunity to break out of his prison world and he wasn't about to let it slip away. He had 18 monotonous, suicidal, lonely, angry years behind him and the thought of spending even one more there…well, anyone would do anything not to. Anything to stop them he would do. Even if it meant blowing Bonnie out of the eclipse's eye mid-spell with an arrow. He was careful to aim for a non-fatal area, ensuring the key to his survival also survived. When the whole shebang was over and she used the last of her energy to send Damon home, effectively shattering the ascendant and most of Kai's patience, she passed out. He had human strength then, so he could remember in vivid detail having to hoist her dead weight off the floor of the cave and carry her back to the Salvatore house. He had to stop, drop her and breathe a few times, but the whole walk he ran through possible next moves, coaching himself to be nicer when she woke up so she would give him what he wanted. _Shouldn't be too tough_ , he had thought, though he was still a little miffed about being killed by another person for the first time in his life. It was nothing like being exiled by your own family, but it was a little hurtful, especially under such dire circumstances. All he wanted was to get out, and ironically the one thing standing in his way was the key.

Kai let a twitch of a smile show as he remembered… he had thrown her lifeless body over his shoulder to carry her, and kept his arm wrapped around her thighs while her head bobbed behind him. The couple of times when he started to get tired, he tried waking her up by smacking her butt since it was right there by his face. Of course it did nothing to rouse her. She was checked out. No matter how hard or how repeatedly he spanked, or how accurately to the beat of Yankee Doodle, it didn't earn so much as a reflexive clench. He would die before telling her about it but he would never forget.

What he wanted to tell her, even though it was hard for him to believe on his own, was that he didn't wait for the merge with Luke to start feeling bad about it. He got her back to the Salvatore house and laid her out on the couch, and when he lifted her shirt to see what kind of damage they were working with, something itched inside him. It wasn't strong enough for him to know for certain whether it was guilt, but a feeling was there. The first girl he laid eyes on in 18 years also happened to be the most useful, was smart yet didn't seem to know how sexy she was, and he goes and shoots her with an arrow. Maybe the mystery feeling was a minute sense of regret. He searched the house for first-aid supplies and returned to her body with a gauze pad and a bottle of peroxide, honestly not sure if he cared about her long-term condition after she got him home, as he was convinced she would with the next eclipse. At the very least he needed her to pull through for just long enough. But as he set to work and he looked, really looked, at the sopping crimson flesh, the blood sheeting outward in an ocean of peroxide as he poured the entire bottle right out, feeling a certain satisfaction at the frothing as it warred with the bacteria, and he listened to the subtle sounds escaping her lips at the sensations and what they must be creating in her unconscious mind, and he thought of the time he hid outside her window and listened to her cry in frustration after an hour of trying and failing to do any kind of spell…he couldn't help but think that not being able to go home wouldn't be the only reason to mourn her if she did die.

 _Look how much you've grown_ , he thought of the scar under his thumb.

"For the record," he broke the silence, "It makes you look more beautiful."

"It makes me look like yours," she said sadly.

He let his eyes fall for too long on hers and he got stuck. _You_ are _mine_ , he thought, but he didn't dare say it out loud. Given her understanding of things, he would absolutely be punished. Inside, however, he still felt it to be true. Her words rang in his ears and he suppressed the smile trying to break his face. It really was like he marked her. It was unintentional at the time, and he truly felt sorry, and he wished he never did it, he wished that her beautiful body was not physically and visibly flagged by his reign of terror. But some darker, too well explored and too shallowly buried _thing_ in him liked the scar. She could never undress in front of another person without the question of how, who, why, or even in front of a mirror by herself without seeing it and thinking of him. In the form of a flaw on her skin, he would always be with her.

Getting lost in her eyes, and in her wounds both external and internal, he found something revelatory. She had been spiraling downward for some time now, descending quicker lately in the time he was away. She let her blacks and whites blur, became more apathetic. She fell so hard from moral high ground she started killing herself. In a drastically condensed timeline, she was becoming more like him. Or, the person he used to be. Things changed after merging with Luke, he was different, he was improved, slightly more inclined to empathy than apathy and all that good stuff; _new leaf_ , as she put it once upon a time. It could be his responsibility to steer her, guide her, help her back to morality. It _should_ be his responsibility to make her his project, to bring her back, no matter what it took. After all, he was all she had. Kai was all the king's horses and all the king's men, the only one there to put her back together again. And likewise she was all he had. She should be herself. Because that person was the one he stuck himself with. She was the one who inspired his greatness and his terribleness. _She_ was the method to his madness.

He set his mouth into a careful smirk-proof line and formed the words he knew she wouldn't answer kindly, "Do you _want_ to be mine?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Do you _want_ to be mine?"

It wasn't the words so much as it was the brazen way he touched her when he said them. It couldn't be mistaken… He groped her scar, as if the breast above it would've given him less satisfaction. His mouth hung slightly open when he did it. Successfully he turned a heavily meaningful confrontation into something sexual. It was difficult for her to admit to herself that the transition felt good. One moment she was calling him out, allowing him a look inside the way she felt when she looked down and saw the scar, that feeling of having been branded. The next, she was being claimed by the brander. It all felt very hazy and wrong but then the way he was looking at her…it was both sympathetic and possessive. She couldn't recall anyone ever looking at her in just that way. It was so raw she had to ask herself the same question. Did she want to be his?

Of course not. She didn't want to relinquish herself to anyone, least of all him and verbally.

At the same time, hearing him ask her this question seemed to tug at something in her chest. A weird feeling she wanted to put an immediate end to.

 _Where's my knife_?

He wanted her. Someone wanted her. Someone who could not be taken away from her. That fact alone tempted her just to nod her head. For the sake of the long game, she knew _yes_ should be the answer. It wasn't realistic to say it out loud, though. He was smarter than to believe it.

No longer able to think under the magnifying heat of his gaze, she swatted his hand away.

"Would you get off!?" she snapped, and begrudgingly he listened. The weight on the bed changed as he got up. Bonnie reached over to the nightstand where the box of French cigarettes sat. She felt his eyes on her as she selected a lilac colored cigarette, set it in her lips and lit it with a spell whispered around the filter.

"Healthy breakfast," he chided. She extended the box out in disgruntled offering and he shook his head. "No thanks, not really my thing, actually."

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "You're judging me."

"No, that's also your thing."

She let her eyelids fall and savored the taste of the smoke as it filled her, along with hopes that it would be easy to let this box be her last once it was all smoked up. When she next looked at Kai, he was opening the door to her closet.

"What are you doing?"

"Packing."

"I told you all my clothes are dirty."

"What makes you think you need them?" He said as he disappeared into the closet, and then called from out of view, "Hey, where's the ascendant?"

"I think it's in the laundry basket in there."

"You _think_?" All she heard for a moment was rustling. "There's nothing in here but your dank-ass clothes. ..Just kidding, your dirty laundry smells kind of good actually. Not that I'm sniffing. Ooh, sexy top, Bon."

She couldn't see him still, but the mental image of Kai sifting through her dirty laundry reawakened some sense of embarrassment. "Well if it's not in there, I don't know," she said, trying to redirect the conversation back to the ascendant.

He appeared in the closet doorway, his head cocked, eyes disbelieving.

"You don't know?"

She shrugged.

"Bonnie, you _lost_ the ascendant?"

"Why does it matter?"

He scoffed, "You're right, it's just a cute little device of extreme power I handcrafted myself like a work of art. It's only the thing that transports us between worlds. It's whatever."

"It's a dud, Kai, I already..." she stopped talking to grit her teeth and rethink her words. "You said we're stuck here."

"I…we are…but… You tried to leave without me? Again? That stings."

"Why do you want the ascendant, Kai?"

"I just…like…having it. Ok?"

"Good luck finding—"

"Wait."

He held up his hand and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply.

"I can feel it. It's not too lost. Actually…" he stopped talking and tilted his head as if to get a better listen at something faint. He turned his attention down towards a pile of dirty clothes that never made it to the basket. After a short rifle through them, he held the intricate glass ball that was the bane of her existence in his hand, a look of accomplishment on his face.

"Huh," Bonnie said idly.

"It could have been broken," Kai scolded.

"So?" She noticed her cigarette was growing a wasteful length of ash, flicked it over the edge of the bed and took a drag.

He smiled dangerously at her and it was plain that he wasn't amused with her apathy. Apparently not interested in furthering the conversation, he located her luggage in the closet and plopped her floral black on black suitcase on the bed in front of her. She watched him scoop up every item of lingerie from the floor and toss it in, wrapping the ascendant gingerly in the last pair of panties and nesting it with the rest. Afterward, he closed the lid and began to zip.

Bonnie puffed a gust of smoke, "That's it? Those are your projected travel necessities for me?"

He smirked and left the room for a second. When he returned, he was sure to make an event of dropping her toothbrush in with the other contents and zipping the suitcase.

"Ready yet?" he asked, failing to hide his frustration. "Or do I have to drag you?"

She scowled. "Hang on." She leaned over to pull the drawer in her nightstand where a small bottle of whiskey rolled into view. She took a long, multi-gulp swig, expert at ignoring the burn as it sluiced down her throat. She hardly felt it anymore, really. When she lowered the bottle and wiped her mouth on her arm, Kai was frowning at her. Early drinking stigmas crossed her mind and she pursed her lips, screwing the cap back onto the bottle and laying it on top of the suitcase for him to pack.

He did, rolling his eyes. Running through other things she might need on the journey, only a few were important enough to stir her willpower. The French cigarettes, her cellphone, her grimoire, and her iPod (because heaven forbid her having no escape from Kai's gabbing) all of which were right there on her nightstand. Kai hesitantly stuffed these things into the suitcase as she handed them to him one by one, acting all the while like it was a major inconvenience to pack anything more than panties. At last she decided it was time to leave the bed, then she remembered she had another bottle of whiskey that had fallen in between her bed and nightstand, and twisted her body back to reach it. She wedged her arm in the tight space, stretching down with much awkwardness, feeling around until her fingers found the cold hard glass and snatched. That instant, she felt her body being tugged backward by the hips.

"Hey!" she yelled, losing her grip on the bottle as Kai pulled her across the bed. Her body reached the edge and her legs dropped out beneath her like a newborn deer, barely saving her from a hard fall after that long gulp of booze.

He meant it literally when he threatened to drag her out. He wouldn't even do her a kindness in simply carrying her; he tightened one hand around her bicep and yanked until she got the point: _we're going_ this _way now_. Her first instinct was to spell herself free from his hold, but the second she bared her teeth she felt the prickling singe of a minor siphoning. "Ugh, wait!" she protested, craning her neck back in the direction she wanted to go while her bare feet slid helplessly on the hardwood. "Just let me get dressed!"

"Fuck that." Kai grabbed her suitcase in his other hand and tore out of the room with a fighting, pulling, grunting, T-shirt and panties-clad Bonnie in tow. She wished she still had her bra on, feeling annoyed at her breasts moving freely while she fought against being dragged. But he showed no mercy and all her bare skin was soon swathed in the night breeze between her front door and the passenger seat of certain tiny red car. With much difficulty, he managed to strap her in.

Seatbelt buckled and door slammed in her face, Bonnie fumed as she glared daggers at Kai walking around the car to put her suitcase in the trunk. It wasn't like she necessarily needed anything else, except pants, or any more time in her Grams' house; she just hated being dragged, like any normal person.

"You've been using Stefan's Porsche?" she asked when he got in on the driver's side. She couldn't help the tone of disgust that leaked out of her. She didn't have any residual bitterness where Stefan was concerned, not like Damon. But she did always think his car was over the top, even more than Damon's. At least it wasn't Damon's they were sitting in, or she thought her thighs might burn the seats out of pure resentment.

"What would you prefer?"

"Something new so we can listen to my iPod."

" _Your_ iPod? Not a chance." He shifted into reverse.

"Well I'm not listening to yours. I'm still sick of grunge."

"Oh, come on. I've expanded my taste a little."

"Can't wait to listen to all of the same band's albums that came out after 1994."

In just under a minute, they were pulling into the driveway of his little yellow house.

"Hey," he said as he put the car in park, "My neighbor has a 2012 Corvette just sitting in the garage, perfectly functional and perfectly asking to be abused." He turned the key and the Porsche fell still and silent.

"Corvette…how obnoxious. Just like you."

"Bon…it's a Corvette. How many chances do you get to ride those in the real world?"

"I dunno…between all my vampire friends and their compulsion skills..."

"Please. The day they'd compel you a ride in a Corvette would be the day they ask you to risk your life handling some big bad fuckface who can only be killed by a witch flooring one."

He didn't wait for Bonnie's rebuttal, but instead hopped out of the car and disappeared behind a lining of tress between the yellow house and the brown house in the next lot. A moment later, a sleek black car inched onto the street and reversed to position at the end of his driveway. Bonnie sighed and unbuckled her seatbelt.

After waiting in the Corvette's passenger seat for five minutes, Bonnie watched Kai come out of his house with a backpack slung over his shoulder, frowning and chewing with a half eaten piece of pie in one hand. Mystic Falls, shortly thereafter, would be a place of the past. Bonnie realized she didn't actually care how much time they spent on the road. Mystic Falls would always be home to her, but she was okay with walking every other foot of land on Earth before ever returning.

Neither spoke as they drove through the last streets of town, only staring out into the dark world outside the windows as it passed them by. Kai waited until they reached the highway out of town to plug in his iPod and dart his attention back and forth between the road and scrolling through his options.

"That's dangerous, you know."

"You say that like it should mean something to me," he said, finally clicking on a song and setting the iPod in the center console. The song started up and Bonnie raised an eyebrow in recognition.

"The Shins?"

"I told you I've expanded."

"I just had a hard time picturing it, I guess."

"Why, because me not listening to grunge is like Archer not being a dick?"

"Wow, and a modern TV reference. You've come so far."

"Only way I know how to come."

"Ugh. That doesn't even make sense. So what, you just sit around and listen to the Shins and watch Archer now? Is that how the new Kai operates? Being evil vicariously through X-rated cartoons?"

"Pretty much. I thought I would miss nineties culture but I really do not. America's become so desensitized, I love it."

Bonnie shook her head and left the conversation where it sat. But silence was not Kai's forte. He didn't even have to speak for her to feel his burning need to. His energy swelled against her and she felt like she needed to lean away.

"What," she asked, monotone.

"What did you do while I was gone?"

All the answers she could give him flashed before her eyes. Should she tell him about the day she got so drunk at the Grill she passed out on the sidewalk halfway home? Or the day and a half she spent drifting between sleep and wallow in his bed, just to smell him, just to reassure herself that she wasn't alone in the world, just to tempt fate to bring him back to her that night? What about the day she spent lying on her couch watching bad movies, too depressed to get up for food or water? Or the day after that, spent puking from hunger and dehydration? Even better, the time she shot herself in the head to get him out of it?

"Nothing," she shrugged with natural nonchalance. She wanted the spotlight off of her, and so returned the question. "What about you? What else did you do on the longest cigarette run in history?" And she couldn't ignore the bitter drop in her chest when she thought of how long he left her alone. As if it wouldn't tear her apart. As if she, like he, could just let the void of human connection roll off her back. Not like he was human anyway. Clearly he thought she wasn't either.

"Mostly nothing. I figured you needed me to be gone for a while after everything. Couldn't have you crime-of-passion me with a wooden chair leg and doom us both to oblivion, right?"

"Right…" she nodded as she thought. There was some merit to the reasoning. She had, after all, killed him in a less permanent way right after he told her what he'd done. It wasn't that extreme for him to worry about his own life. There were moments when he was gone…she daydreamed of sawing his head off. But she could never picture it without turning him around in her mind; even imaginarily, she couldn't kill him if she could see his face. Somehow sometime in the recent past he managed to weasel his way into the line-up of people she cared about, despite everything, and from that point forward no matter what he did to her there existed something stronger than his deceit, something that gave him immunity. It was possibly an underlying knowledge that, nowadays, even the bad things were done because he cared about her even more. So much more that he, in his selfish nature, failed to see how it suffocated her. And yet, while she fought for air, she was addicted to the fight. She said it herself, he had done his worst. But she still let him in. Because enough was never enough.

Preemptively she sniffed back all water ready to leech out of her eyes and nose, and asked, "Where are we going anyway?"

"If you want to end up in France eventually, East is probably the quickest way, so I'm going North. I figure we'll ride out the night, stop in Pennsylvania so the sun can do its thing without incinerating me, and if we get back on the road without a hitch like the one you put up a little bit ago, we should be in New York City with a few hours of dark left."

"New York?" she gushed accidentally and he smiled.

"And as it so happens, the airport there is probably the best place to commandeer a plane to your dream destination."

Bonnie relaxed into her seat. She closed her eyes, sighed through her nose and her lips turned up at the ends just a little. Why hadn't she left town earlier? The first five minutes of changing scenery already started to brighten the darkest parts in her. Maybe the dreadful last few weeks in Mystic Falls could stay in Mystic Falls, and she could belittle the mental lapse she experienced there as "dark times," leave it behind and never look back.

She happened to glance up and realize she was riding shotgun in a Corvette with a sunroof. Her sense of fun caught up with her body. She looked to her left at the man whisking her away.

"Kai."

He turned to the sound of his name, his eyes light and his smirk prevalent.

"Bonnie."

"I think you should open the sunroof."

"I think you're right."

He pressed a button adjacent to the steering wheel and with a mechanic sound a hole to the sky opened up. Cold air whirled throughout the car and though Bonnie was still half naked it felt less discomforting than invigorating.

"I think I'm gonna have to veto your iPod now," she said as she pulled the auxiliary cord, cutting the Shins short. He groaned but didn't do anything to stop her. Her own iPod, which she'd retrieved from her suitcase during the transfer from Porsche to Corvette, replaced his and she chose a more upbeat song.

"You might hate this," she warned him. When the song started, she grinned and unbuckled her seatbelt.

"What are you doing?" He sounded concerned.

"When did you become Mr. Serious?"

Bringing her feet up onto the leather seat, Bonnie grabbed the oh-shit handle and used it to steady herself as she stood.

The night air was a vicious wind as it rippled through her short hair at the speed Kai was driving. Getting a comfortable footing, she brought both her arms up and laid her hands on the smooth top of the car. Black forest passed, devoid of life, on both sides and it gave her the chills to think about, so she looked forward to the indigo horizon. She laughed unexpectedly at how gleeful she was feeling and how radically optimistic everything seemed when just a day and half ago she was waking up regenerated in a smattering of her own blood, not a trace of doubt in her mind that she would do it again and again. Now speeding across Virginia with Kai in an unforeseen turn of events, it seemed years ago, distanced by eons of recovery. It felt so good she thought she might burst. Trust the sociopath to reinject that lust for life in her.

"Faster!" she yelled downward. Her arms, of their own accord, stretched out to her sides like wings. At her command, the wind cut harder as the car roared its acceleration and she screamed with an elation that could not be suppressed. It rose up her throat like glad vomit.

* * *

Kai gripped the steering wheel as he divided his attention between the dark highway ahead and Bonnie's magnificent ass to his immediate Northwest. A variation of feelings, some recognizable and others strange, vied for sorting in his brain. There was the strong urge to touch her…to feel their skin meet, or steady her by the ankle at the very least, because she was standing up unsecured in a Corvette speeding ninety eight miles per hour and it was making him apprehensive, but she seemed to be having fun because of his car choice and his speed and something about making her happy made him feel…good?...accomplished?...happi _er_? and whatever the whirring in his body was, it made him want to do even more to cheer her up, and it made him want to formulate into words that one deeper feeling he'd known about for a while now, and just the idea of that made him also want to disembowel himself for being such a sap. It would ruin this moment entirely.

Seeing her like this set his worry for her in revolution.

Though she was going through changes, she wasn't entirely _not_ herself. Kai remembered, not without annoyance, eavesdropping on Damon and Bonnie's conversations and hearing a lot about vampires and their humanity switches, and whether or not the vampire in question was their true self when the switch was off. Kai, being formerly a person who had little humanity by default, thought it was absurd to award so much credit on the knowledge of anyone's "self" to people who weren't that self. So it wasn't Kai's problem to decide whether Bonnie was really being herself or not, was it? It was hers. And meanwhile, all he could hear was that dormant _old_ Kai, the freak idling in the cracks of his binary soul, now thrashing like a bat for liberation from hell.

Bonnie looked so…not careless…but carefree. Was he jealous?

In the glory days, he wouldn't say he necessarily longed for a like-minded friend. He did have friends, however like or unlike him they really were, but none of them quite fit the make-up he might've hand-picked if he had the opportunity. Here, now, with Bonnie, he didn't need to pick. He didn't need to long. She was set on a sure path to something terrible, and though her head and her problems were comprised of different turns and cruelties, the end result was the same:

They were tortured souls.

He could either try to fix it…or party.

He afforded himself one longer glance up, eyes dancing from thigh to thigh until he could look past them and see Bonnie howling out at the night in what he perceived to be pure bliss. Yes, he was jealous. He hated this nervous wreck he was becoming.

The old Kai and his will were bound to the soul he merged with. Humanity came equipped with certain blocks. He had to admit that standing behind them he didn't feel quite like himself.

But he could knock down blocks.

He was part vampire.

Feeling like himself was as simple as flipping a switch.


	4. Chapter 4

He was abnormally quiet for the drive. Conversation picked up now and again but it was meaningless, comments on the color of the sky, the stars, the state of the buildings when they passed through blink-and-miss-it towns. Not his usual long-winded quirks, little teasing and few innuendos. His silence left much to Bonnie's imagination. Even while she was glad to have some peace, she felt some slight discomfort not knowing every annoying little thought that entered his brain.

She passed some time looking over a map she had snagged when they last stopped for gas. It was difficult to read in such lighting but if her squinting was correct, they had already passed by the biggest town in the area, and the sky was slowly but surely lightening to a dusty blue.

"We should find a place to stop," Bonnie yawned as she rolled her head sideways on her seat to look at Kai, whose jaw and cheekbones stood out impressively in a tight frown. Maybe he was just as tired.

"Agreed," he murmured. "Pick your favorite house and I will."

"House? I was picturing more of a hotel, you know, someplace with a relatively clean bed, meant for visitors, no ghosts…"

Something she said was able to turn up one side of his face, mouth half smiling and one eyebrow curved in amusement.

"Yeah, you're gonna have to get over that. It's your world, Bonnie. These houses, they might be modeled after somebody else's, but those people aren't here. They never have been. The whole lived-in look is an illusion, it should make you feel more at home at this point. Don't you think?"

"I want a hotel. Like you said, it's my world. So I make the rules."

He sighed, "As you wish…your majesty. Any other rules you'd like to lay down while you're at it?"

"Actually, yeah. Nice hotels only. Really nice."

"Oooh," Kai sucked in air through his teeth, "You know how expensive those can be. Don't wanna push our budget."

She shook her head and smiled just to humor him.

"Somehow I think we'll manage."

After some driving around that became a panicked search when the beginnings of sunrise toned the land, they had to settle for the first hotel they found. It wasn't quite as fancy as Bonnie was envisioning, but it was historic, quaint in an endearing way and something about it still satisfied her. Kai parked the Corvette under cover, unloaded their bags and followed Bonnie on her leisurely hunt for a room. Leisurely because she let herself be distracted in admiring the hotel's interior…the brick walls, old narrow windows with heavy red drapes, the curvature in doorways and embellishments. Even the furniture was rustic chic.

"All these empty rooms are gonna freak me out," she mused as she led him down a hallway.

She ended up favoring a corner room on the top floor because the windows were bigger. Although she had to draw the curtains over the view anyway. The room faced east and the toxic sunrise. Kai had set her suitcase on her bed and tentatively backed out of the room before she noticed how the bright sunlight crept across the hardwood and, not ready for him to leave her, she apologized and hurried over to the windows. When a safer dimness shrouded the room she felt him reenter, but he didn't say anything.

She hadn't spent much time thinking about where they would sleep in relation to each other. Now that they were out in the world and nothing was familiar, she wanted him near. It ate away at her sense of independence but she wasn't ready for aloneness. Not yet.

She turned and faced him.

"Will you stay just until I fall asleep?"

"Only until then?"

She shrugged, "I guess it won't matter if I'm unconscious, will it?"

"Are you going to bed now?"

"I'm tired, but I don't really want to sleep yet."

"What do you want to do?" he asked, taking the smallest step closer to where she stood. She could feel her own body, so drained from the hours in the car, awakening to the nearness of his. And his energy, vibrant, reached out.

"I don't know. I should probably take a shower. If I can smell myself, you can probably smell me too."

He seemed amused.

"I can smell you, yeah, but it's not a bad smell. From over here anyway. I just smell your blood, and lotion. Lemony."

"On that note..."

She left Kai alone to shower in the tiny bathroom. By the time she was stepping out of the water, she knew she'd spent much more time in there than originally planned but she felt less anxious. Sleep would be easier to come by. Especially after a little swig from the bottle in her suitcase, which she had dragged along into the bathroom with her.

When she dried off to put clean clothes on, she remembered to much dismay that she didn't have any.

"Shit," she whispered to herself as she wrapped her towel around her body and tucked one corner in so it would stay on. Maybe there was a cute local clothing store within reasonable distance. It was daytime, after all. It wouldn't be too cold, and it wasn't like any people were around to judge her for leaving privacy in nothing but a towel. She stepped out of the bathroom to find Kai sitting on the edge of the bed with a bag of potato chips. He'd taken off his jacket and she couldn't help but notice the size of his shoulders underneath that horrid _Voulez-vous?_ shirt, muscles moving as he fed himself chip after chip. Music played from a portable speaker hooked up to his iPod on a small red accent table.

Her pruned toes froze enough on the hardwood for her to make a mental note to find a good selection of socks for the remainder of their time on the east coast. Kai looked up at her as she made her way delicately across the room.

"Hey, I remember that outfit," he jeered. She bit her lip.

"I need clothes."

"Way ahead of you," he said while putting a large chip into his mouth. A new outfit was laid out for her on the bed. "There was a gift shop downstairs."

"Thanks," she said, already able to tell that she would indeed need to stop for a more fashionable option as soon as possible. In the meantime, she was too tired to snub the sweat pants with PENNSYLVANIA down the left leg in big, bold athletic font. She went to pick up the fresh clothes and gaped.

"I heart _Intercourse_?" She held the t-shirt up in her fist as she glared at Kai.

"Bonnie. Language. We're in Amish country."

"Kai."

"You've seriously never heard of Intercourse, Pennsylvania? The town that we're in?"

"You planned that, didn't you."

"Stopping here to see what's up with that? Of course. Awesome tourist shirts? No. But I'm happy."

" _I heart Intercourse_?" she repeated, dumbfounded.

"Hey, be grateful. It was either that or _I Brake for Buggies_. And at least you have a clean shirt. I didn't have to do that."

She shook her head. "I guess I'm gonna change."

"Here? Now?"

"In the bathroom, perv."

A minute later she was back in the room, a practical twig in the XL men's shirt he chose for her. But she was comfortable, and clean, and a second secret large gulp of liquor coursed confidence through her, and it was all that mattered. She had to give herself a mental peptalk about being nicer to him in order to gain total influence.

"Are you hungry?" he asked as she rejoined him, flinging his chip bag, now empty, onto the bedroom floor.

"No," she lied.

"Oh. I am."

"You are?" she perked sympathetically, ready and willing to be fed upon. To satisfy him. She was so good at acting she almost believed herself for a moment. He noticed her eagerness.

"Yeah—I—For like, more chips, or something, not _that._ I wasn't asking for that. But now that you mention it, I guess, I guess I am."

"Yeah? You're hungry?" she began tugging the collar of her shirt aside.

"Bonnie, you don't have to."

"It's fine."

A song Bonnie recognized from the nineties started to play, but it was one she'd had on her own iPod before she was ever stuck there. It was soft, melodic and sweet.

"Really?" she said with a genuine tone of surprise and smirking at him.

"To be fair," he said, something like a blush surfacing on his cheeks, "I hated this song when it came out. It's grown on me recently."

 _Why?_ she wondered. She sensed the possibility of her _in_ , the presence of a weak spot in him that could be manipulated. She trailed her fingertips along the edge of the quilted bedspread as she sauntered in his direction.

"I'll skip it."

"Don't," she insisted. "I like this song." And his body language suggested that he was hopeful to receive her just as she was hopeful to be received with foolish trust.

They found each other and he was already devouring her with his eyes. She realized her inability not to shake under his smolder and needed something, anything, to do with her limbs. The song carried on and she felt the water in the make-up of her body swaying to its rhythm. Kai's eyes trailed down her neck. Without thinking, her right hand magnetized to his left hand and she interlocked their fingers. He looked downward and narrowed his eyes suspiciously but she held on for a moment. Until she knew where she was going with him.

"When's the last time you danced with a girl?"

One of his eyebrows sprang upward as he assessed her.

"Let me think," he said, tightening his grip on her hand and sneakily sliding his other arm around to rest at her lower back. "In the springtime of never."

"You've never danced? Was that by choice, or…"

"Oh definitely." Their bodies began swaying slowly together. "Dancing is for losers."

"Hm."

"You really don't have to feed me tonight."

Bonnie let her other hand begin at his chest and slide up over his shoulder and around the back of his neck. It rested there with her fingertips casually touching the cool skin beneath the collar of his shirt. She guided their light embrace a step to the left and she was officially slow-dancing with the enemy. He was responding to her play better than expected. She could feel his fingers burning satisfaction in her lower back. Not so oddly, due to the conjunction of his touch and the liquor in her veins, she wanted more. It was like she offered to feed him simply because she wanted to feel his mouth on her, and to feel that rigid desire from him. Even with his gaze on her face, she slammed her eyelids shut for a few seconds, needing to look inward and frighten away any infinitesimal romantic thoughts with her evil eye.

"I would rather just make you happy than have you lay awake resenting me all night," she told him, slowly lifting the darkness from her vision to find him observing her with absolute weakness. It dissipated rather fast when he realized it.

He laughed shortly. "Bonnie, Bonnie. Resentment is a waste of time. Hypothetically if I was lying awake because of you, I would just take care of the problem."

"Hypothetically, you would wake me up, right? I'm still not a fan of your Dracula method."

"Hypothetically when I say _problem_ I don't mean hunger. And of course I would wake you up."

"Kai…"

"It's hypothetical, Bonnie. No need to lay awake over it." He winked.

"Will you ever stop making me nervous?" she asked. It sounded rhetorical but he apparently didn't intend to leave her hanging.

"Probably not."

"Not until the day you die," she finished.

"Which will never happen."

"Unless I snap and kill you," she threatened in the slow, calm manner which they danced. She continued in the dreamy tone of a woman who needed her sleep, "Look at me wrong, just once. I'll find a long, sharp piece of wood and I'll drive it right through your heart. And we'll both fall to violent pieces, get smaller and smaller until we're all gone."

"I love it when you talk dirty to me."

She smiled. "You would if I was, but I'm not. I'm just making small talk."

"Oh yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. If I was talking dirty to you, you would know. Trust me."

"Prove it," he dared, jerking her lower body to a rough but short slam against his hips. She was able to recover from the physical suggestion with littler sass than she expected from her admittedly crumbling resolve. With a grit of her teeth, she held fast.

Her head fell back and she softly dragged her chin up along his clavicle and relaxed into his shoulder, eyes rolling in an alcoholic laze across all the country art on the walls before stopping at his ear and whispering more seductively than she intended, "Shut up and bite me already."

* * *

Kai tilted his head back to swallow his last mouthful of blood. He let his lower jaw lock open, his bright reddened lips stretched over his teeth as he breathed heavily against the powerful urge to keep drinking her.

He had wavering thoughts for the whole drive on the state of his humanity. For several minutes it would seem like great fun, and then some annoying consequence would cross his mind and he would spend the next half hour decided against it. And then he would feel bored, and curious, and return again to considering the off button. It was happenstance that distraction found him at a humanity-favoring moment and the switch was never flipped.

If anything was going to convince him, it was the way she looked at him sometimes.

When his eyes fluttered open and focused back on Bonnie, she was watching him from the hard angle he held her. Her eyes were big, watery and bothered. He evened his breath and looked at her lips, intending to formulate some kind of movement involving them, but they seemed stunned in the middle of something else. His tongue, under force of instinct, ran over his lips to bring in every speck of blood he was afforded. He knew he must look like some kind of animal to her.

Noticing how still and stiff their embrace had become, he relaxed his hand on her back, released the breath caught in his throat. Bonnie's body, like a stepped-on blade of grass, slowly rose back upward. Her eyelids sank with the shift in gravity; she was tired. And just as she regained posture, her head was weighted forward and she careened into his front. All slumped, she was as tall as his heart. He could feel her eyelashes kiss his bicep, her sweet breath warm his forearm as she slid weakly down.

"I wish you were still human," she mourned.

He caught her in descent and helped her into the bed, a slew of potential responses rising to his lips as he tucked her underneath the covers, but none made the cut. He kept silent, unsure of the right thing to say because he was unsure of the emotion wrecking his heart.


	5. Chapter 5

**Note to readers:** **i intentionally waited until 2 chapters were complete before updating because i don't want you to hate me for what i have done. please. don't hate me; just trust. Also I love you guys.**

* * *

Consciousness found her around seven in the evening. It pierced her membrane of dreams in the kindest ways.

There was a slow, calm sensation of another person's fingertip drawing the length of her arm where it lay bent on the bed before her, wrist turned so her fingers pointed at herself. She was dreaming she was seven years old again and her Grams had come into her room to wake her from a nightmare.

She knew it wasn't real when, smiling, she nuzzled her pillow and breathed in the soapy scent of unfamiliar linens. Her eyes broke open just a crack.

Hotel room.

Pennsylvania.

Prison world.

Bonnie sighed miserably into the pillow. How could she dare to dream of anything that reminded her what else had been, what else could be if this never happened to her? All of a sudden a heavy, room-tilting mood passed through her body like a ghost. For the seconds it was in her, she couldn't breathe; it filled her lungs in place of air, and then it rushed out. The speed and randomness with which it came and went obliged it to be forgotten soon thereafter.

An internal debate whether to get up and stroll the dusky grounds of the hotel or squeeze her eyes to shut her reality out for a little longer left her exhausted enough to resort to the latter. The sun still loomed dangerously outside the window but its light fell in forgiving softness around the edges of the room. It would be another hour or two before dark.

 _So why bother?_

She let her eyes close once more and breathed evenly, trying to remember with little conviction how long it had been since she felt so rested. Easily her body returned to the in-between state, in which soft hallucinations of sitting up, and going to brush her hair before another long drive, and looking out the window, all seemed too real when her consciousness drifted back to her body and she realized she had never gotten up at all. Somewhere in the middle she became acutely aware of a hum that had been centering her from behind for an unknown amount of time.

As if she'd been speaking her thoughts aloud, she felt the sheets beneath her slide as her body was pulled backward. Another hallucination, likely. Something heavy wrapped around her front and she was in a safe cocoon. A warm breath drifted across her neck, so real, followed by what could only be a mouth. It pressed softly against the sensitive spot between her shoulder and neck, awakening her lower body to a swirl of blood in hammers. It was so unexpected she grasped onto the sheets for some sense of gravity, to keep herself from floating away.

She felt a slight wetness on her skin, coming from the mouth. Her body, entirely relaxed from such a good sleep, responded with uninhibited impulse. Toes curled, knuckles cracked, a moan sounded from somewhere deep in her belly. The other presence in the room liked this. It showed its approval by tightening its snare to a rib-crushing caliber while a tongue, unbound by lips, slid the length of her neck. She felt teeth grazing over the back of her jawbone just before these sensations evolved into a long, steady kiss. Breath, constricted through the nose of the other presence, blew into her ear canal, making her want to kick her feet in arousal. Without any thought she reached behind her to clutch the shoulder of this skilled incubus.

His skin was bare, cool and it shivered under her touch until it matched her temperature. She trailed her fingernails down what stretch of him she could reach and it incited his advances. A hand, perhaps the one that had stroked her awake, lay flat on her waist and crawled over her hip to linger playfully around her waistband. A husky moan vibrated his chest and in turn hers, making her heart pound.

Against her will she elevated to a higher level of consciousness and realized this seduction was not a product of her imagination; she was not creating this shadow behind her; that the mouth on her could belong to none other than Kai. Kai, in the flesh, not a hallucination. Kai, who she'd told explicitly to stay _until_ she fell asleep, and had obviously been with her all night.

In sudden rage, she willed one of her classic crippling aneurysms on him. He hissed and removed his hand from her body, but it didn't seem to affect him as harshly as she meant. She tore the covers off of her and leapt from the bed.

"Gah! I swear you get more powerful every day," Kai complimented behind her.

Bonnie whipped around. He was working on sitting up in the bed and he was shirtless. Did they…?

"Did we…?"

"Make hot Parker-Bennett sex last night in the book-approved missionary position because location, location, location?" he finished her question. "You kind of passed out on me, so no. Sorry for your loss."

"God, what the hell Kai? You were supposed to go find your own room after I fell asleep, you weren't supposed to spoon me all night."

"I didn't spoon you _all_ night."

"I don't know what you think this is."

"This, meaning you and me? This is a sexy witch and a devilishly handsome heretic making the most."

"Just because you're in your own private Idaho, figuratively _and_ literally—"

"Pennsylvania."

"It's an expression, Kai. You think that trapping me in this world with you and being all charming and…shirtless…and…soothing… is gonna convince me not to hate you or something. You might be the only guy in the world but I still have standards."

"You didn't have standards last time you slept on my couch. And you sure as hell didn't have any standards at breakfast the next day."

Bonnie tried not to physically squeeze her thighs together at the invading memory of him pounding away between them. Irritatingly enough she was beginning to feel her heartbeat collect down there as blood still kept pooling to the star spot.

"Ugh, just forget it. The sun's going down in like an hour, so—"

"What if I don't want to forget it? You're pretty critical of me, and don't get me wrong, I love having an earful of how fucking horrible I am. But it's your turn for harsh criticism because – surprise, surprise! – _everyone_ has flaws."

"Kai."

"You're full of shit."

"Excuse me?"

"You told me once that you're my only friend, and now you say we'll never be friends. You kiss me, and then you kill me. You fuck me, tell me it won't happen again, and remember how that panned out?"

"Kai, stop."

"You fucked me _again_. Because you liked it. Not because we're alone and you had no better option. You kissed me, and you fucked me, and you feed me because you like me."

"That's fresh."

He stepped out of the bed and the covers fell from his hips. "I don't need you to admit anything to me, I already know." In nothing but his boxers, he sauntered his way toward her unhurried. "I know that darkness captivates you in a way the light never can. Light bores you. But you'll fight the truth until it gets you killed." He stopped a foot from where she stood with her arms crossed. "You don't know how powerful you could be if you only gave in to your darkness. Just once in a while."

"You don't know me, Kai," she said lowly, thinking back to the days when she had Expression, fearful of just how wrong she might be. He took another step so they were almost nose to nose, but she refused to step back.

"I know if you let me in, we could do some serious damage together," he said with allure.

"I don't want to do damage, Kai. That's not who I am."

"Bullshit. You love breaking things."

"Your things."

"It's just confusing. You confuse me. You want me to think that I'm the worst thing that ever happened to you, but you flirt."

"I do not flirt with you."

He turned his head to look at her sideways while a frustrated brow and playful smile fought for dominance in his expression.

"What's your game, Bonnie?"

 _Game. Shit. The game._

She was too flustered at finding herself on a low boil of attraction to conjure up her acting skills. The game was still on, of course, but she supposed she was still having her reservations about being the kind of girl who fucks her way to the goal. She could even admit inwardly she would rather just sleep with him to sleep with him than fuck him to induce his freedom-resulting pity. She wasn't ready for that. At least, not first thing in the morning. And certainly not without alcohol's guidance.

"My _game_ ," she answered, "is I probably have some kind of personality disorder from learning to deal with you and your gift for gab."

The warring in his features ended and frustrated brow won, sinking its victory down to give him a less than amused frown.

"Oh boy," he said, rubbing his eyes in exasperation, "Your attitude is really starting to get under my skin."

"Good."

"I've been nice to you, you can't argue that. I've given you everything in my power, and it's never enough. And now I'm having this little problem where I just want to stop feeling like I will never be enough for anyone. You know? Kind of thinking this whole feelings thing isn't really my bag of bones."

"You mean your _bag_? It's just bag. No bones in it."

"Whatever. You know what I mean. It's not my cup of blood."

" _Cup of tea_."

"Like, I might kill you if I _don't_ flip it."

"Flip what?" she asked, annoyed, and as realization dawned, her heart thumped. "… _No_."

"Yeah."

"You wouldn't," she dismissed, putting her hand on her hip and huffing. She liked to think her death glare would be more than enough of a warning.

He looked at nothing out of the corner of his eye as he made his decision, nodding slowly in thought, and smirked as he returned his gaze to hers.

"Oh," he whispered mischievously, "I so would."

* * *

It was, as expected, the way she looked at him. A hint of judgement here, a touch of attraction there. It drove him crazy. And he was tired of being torn in half by her vacillating ethics. He was tired of this nonsense, what felt like pining for her, and the pain that came with waiting for someone like her to stoop for someone like him. It was time now, if only to experiment. To feel that wicked feeling again. To be feared and fearsome. To be the wild card that held everything and everyone at his mercy.

She preferred human lovers, or as much could be surmised from her pitiful wish that she had admitted to him the night before. While he himself couldn't ignore his own budding grief for the simplicity of being human it wasn't something he could ever be, for himself or for her. And bitterness stemmed from that. All in the last twelve hours it blossomed to a hideous urge to flip her on her back; to stray as far from any lingering humanness as possible, just to spite her, just to show her; to become at fullest, severest potential what she clearly expected him to be: a monster.

He imagined his facial expression must be worrying her as he concentrated on locating that handy little internal device. When he found it, he clenched his molars, breathed deeply and something clicked inside him. Something comparable to the release of a significant hormone filled his body, stretched its wings and batted them against the lining of his outer form. He cracked his neck, smiled, laughed a little " _ha_." And set his sights on Bonnie. She looked like she was preparing to run away. She took such a subtle step backwards he wondered if she was hoping he wouldn't notice. Her hands flattened against her sides as she inched along in retreat. Admittedly she had expert control over her features. She didn't seem afraid, or not so much afraid as she seemed curious. But that telltale heart…

* * *

Something passed across his eyes. She could almost watch it enter his right eye from the right, coast over his left eye and exit left. It was like watching the end of a train cross the road. Like someone waving goodbye.

"You didn't," she breathed.

A dark and gleeful grin danced across his face. The hair on her arms pricked up.

"Oh, I so did."


	6. Chapter 6

"What the fuck, Kai?!" she burst out without raising her voice too high, as if there were other guests at the hotel.

"Chillax," he urged, smirking, sneaking forward as she sneaked backward.

"Chillax? Are you really telling me to chillax right now? Go back to nineties slang before I rip your head off."

"Okay. Dude, um, don't freak. It's not like I can actually kill you anyway."

"I'm not afraid of being killed."

"Oh? What are you afraid of, Bonster?"

She stared and kept her mouth shut, trying to get her bearings, a mental picture of her exit without taking her eyes off of him.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," he giggled.

"If humanity-off heretic Kai is anything like pre-merge Kai, you will."

"It's different now. Then, you were standing in my way when I wanted to get out of my prison world. Now, there's kind of like no point because all I want is you."

"And I still want to get out."

"So don't bug me about it too much and you'll be fine. You know…I don't actually feel all that different. I would say it didn't work, but…" he reached for her hand. She gasped and jerked away, earning an admonishing cluck from him. He grabbed her hand anyway, pressing their palms together as he interlaced their fingers and rubbed comfort with his thumb. "Shh, it's ok," he cooed before she felt her magic flee her in a jolt of pain. She yelled and just as soon, the pain was gone. Kai released her hand and laughed evilly, "Nope. Not a thing. Not one little nerve of guilt." And he sighed. "That's a relief. Oh don't worry, that was the last time. Just because I can hurt you without feeling bad about it doesn't mean I'm going to. I don't want you to hate me, you know?"

"You sound the same as you used to."

"So you admit it. I _did_ change."

"I'm just saying I don't believe you. This doesn't end well for me."

"Your prerogative," he said with a shrug, and then with a charming little smirk, "But you're still stuck with me."

"No. I'm not," she denied, shaking her head resolutely, "I'm not going anywhere with you. Not like that." She backed into the doorway and felt along the frame behind her, taking a backwards step out into the hall.

He laughed, "Aww, you flatter me. It's so cute how you think you need to run away. Even cuter that you think you can. Although a little bit less flattering."

Bonnie pouted her lips, knowing he was probably right. She was a powerful witch, but without at least an A, B, and C package of sophisticated plans for resistance, she was no match. As long as she kept her distance, as long as she didn't let him touch her, didn't let him get to her with that vampire speed, she would be fine. Defense spells were her best friends here, more so than attack spells that stabilized her body.

"Go ahead, Bon. I won't stop you. Yet."

She took another nervous step backward.

"Seriously, it's ok. I'll give you like an hour head start. Our suitcases are all over the place, who's gonna pack those back up if we play hide and seek? On the count of 3,600, ready, set, run." He smiled with charm. When she didn't move, due to some kind of paralysis she couldn't seem to get over, his expression dropped immediately down into one of rage. " _Run!_ " he barked at her, which did succeed in kicking her legs up in the air. She flew down the hall, hearing his booming laughter back in the room, skittered down the stairs and bolted for the Corvette. Even when she hit sunlight and her bare feet danced painlessly across the gravel, she panicked like he was still right behind her. She slammed her butt down into the driver's seat, thankful as hell Kai left the key in the ignition for "safekeeping" from her tendency to misplace things. Her feet couldn't reach the pedals, so she had to adjust the seat a wild amount closer to the steering wheel, and in a flash she was a mile down the road.

By the time darkness fell, she knew he was in pursuit. She had already stopped at gas station while she could, filling the tank and a five gallon jug for back-up that sloshed behind her. She reeked of gasoline but she didn't care; she would pay any price to put a safe distance between her and Kai. As determined as she felt, high on adrenaline, sneaky little naysaying thoughts couldn't be ignored. Kai usually got what he wanted… Locator spells were as basic as brushing your teeth in the morning. If she even stopped to sleep, she would wake up to him standing over her.

She cursed all down the highway. From screaming, " _FUCK_!" in desperation, to muttering things like, " _Shouldn't have tested him_ ," and when she realized that New York and Paris were probably off the menu, she started to cry. Was she really so bad that he felt he had to turn off his humanity to deal with her? And how, just how in the hell, would she ever bring him back? He had zero emotional attachment to anything to begin with… except maybe her. But she doubted even that had ever grown strong enough in his impaired emotional ability to be the thing that convinces him back to humanity.

He had told her not to bug him about going home. Well she was already set on keeping that wish unspoken. When she first learned that her entrapment was his doing, he assumed out loud that she would spend eternity begging him to let her out or something. She didn't intend to fulfill that vision. Least of all now when her entire plan, all games long and short, were useless. A totally guilt-free Kai meant a totally hope-free Bonnie. And she couldn't even end her own life to escape him.

Unless she stepped up her game.

But that would involve trickery of the loftiest psychological navigation. And she didn't know him _that_ well. Plus…in his deranged playground of a mind, he probably had a plan for her and how she would keep him entertained. She didn't want to find out what it was, but it was inevitable that she would, and it was possible that whatever he ended up doing to her would set certain limitations on her ability to trick him. In her own deranged mind, she imagined being bound and gagged.

"Ugh, for real, Bonnie," she scoffed at herself. Though, she knew, being bound and gagged by Kai Parker in particular wasn't the farthest thing from possible.

Hours of stressing flipped by on the car's analog clock.

She didn't even know where she was going. She just knew she couldn't stop.

* * *

It truly amazed him how little difference he sensed after flipping the switch. Sure, the agony over how much he wanted Bonnie was gone. But the flip only removed the emotion in that equation. It didn't change his wants, or his needs. No, he very much still wanted Bonnie, but for a less dimensional, more possessive purpose. While he intended to become her worst nightmare incarnate out of his own deeply wounded need to be spiteful, he now discovered himself to be working with something not emotionally driven. It was odd… he imagined himself as the blueprint of a person, a basic setup taken as far in construction as the point just before the indecorous addition of complicated emotions. Basic functions were there, and they were still attached to basic feelings, but ones that he could easily identify without over-processing until it made his head split. Feelings that could be noticed, and dismissed without so much as a two-second assessment on why they were there. For instance, Bonnie stole the corvette. That naughty little girl. She left him. And he could sense abandonment, which would have made him a little ticked off, and interested in evening the score. But it didn't, and he wasn't. He knew he would catch her, he knew she would be afraid, he knew that her fear would positively please him, not to mention beautify her in a way he had noticed fear did. All he really _felt_ , per se, was excitement. And somewhat of a desire, not to indulge in any monstrosity (for this would only make her difficult) but instead to…maybe…sort of…lure her over to the dark side along with him.

* * *

By two in the morning, staring at a black highway had her eyes drooping. Even though she was well rested and powered by fear, she was getting bored. Until her eye was caught by a suspicious flash of light.

She whispered a string of curses, stomping the gas pedal down to the floor. Was it a pair of headlights behind her, or a trick of the mind? A trick of the moonlight, perhaps? The moonlight and the starlight reflecting in any of the glass surrounding her?

She took a curve in the road at top speed and lost sight of the stretch of road behind her, and nearly her control of the wheel. The Corvette roared.

Another flash of light whipped across the rearview mirror. This time it was unmistakable.

The road evened out and as she made her way down the straight highway, a practical ravine in the thickness of the forest, it was easier to see that she was definitely sharing the road. It was half a mile behind her at least, but there was another car.

Her throat constricted and her whine emerged as a squeak before another bout of tears began rolling down. It was over. She was over. One hundred plus miles per hour apparently wasn't fast enough to outrun him.

Bonnie lifted her foot from the gas pedal. The car transitioned from roaring to coasting, and soon decelerating. The headlights in the mirror grew larger, brighter. She didn't bother to pull onto the shoulder when the Corvette slowed to a crawl, but instead gently pressed the brake, shifted into park and waited. She leaned her head back against the seat, trying to pace down her walloping heart with mindful breaths, wiping her tears so he wouldn't make fun of her. She reminded herself that her best chance at things going smoothly was to be agreeable with Kai. Even in 1994, he was easy to get along with if you didn't stand in his way.

The other car, a newer white one similar in design to the Corvette, pulled up behind her. She watched the driver door open in the mirror, then glanced away in anxiety. The door slammed shut. In seconds, there was a _knock-knock-knock_ on her window. Without turning her head, she shifted her eyes to her upper left and saw Kai peering in at her with a pleasant smile on his face.

She pressed a button to roll the window down just an inch.

He wheezed a laugh and showed her a full set of happy white teeth, "Like I can't just break the glass?"

Shivering and trying hard not to roll her eyes at him, she put her window all the way down. Kai set his arm on top of the car and leaned down to her level. For only a second, they made eye contact. She couldn't find any anger in his eyes but it still unnerved her to look at him. He might look momentarily harmless, but his mood swings were famous.

"Get out of the car."

"Why?"

"Let's talk."

"It's cold."

"I'll keep you warm."

Bonnie waited. Whatever he could mean by that, she really preferred where she was sitting. In the driver's seat, behind the wheel, foot at the gas pedal. In control. If necessary, she could back up, put it in drive, and run him over. It would only succeed in another short head start, and making him vengeful. But the option was there, so long as she stayed in the seat of that control.

"I don't want—"

"Get out of the car," he interrupted, raising his voice without quite yelling at her. He could sense she only needed a little shove before she did as she was told.

Sighing long and loud, partly in frustration but more for steadying her own nerves, Bonnie opened the car door and cautiously stepped out onto the cold asphalt. Her feet were still bare and it stung. She felt like she'd been pulled over by a cop for a sobriety test and behaved just as introverted as she would in that scenario. Mouth shut, eyes half lidded, arms at her sides, feet close together and her spine curved into a meek hunch. She was assuming the inferior role.

Kai shut the driver door and closed in on Bonnie, effectively backing her up against the side of the car. The Corvette's sleek exterior froze her back while heated winds gusted up her legs from the hot mechanical parts below. The contrasting temperatures added significantly to her unease being speared to the car by his accomplished gaze.

 _All I want is you_.

His words from earlier in the evening, and strangely even the craving way he looked at her, the masculine rise and fall of his shoulders as he, exhilarated by frightening her, barred an arm to the car on her right side and curiously thumbed her neck with the other… recalled her blood downward.

"Relax, you're not in trouble," he hummed in a pacifying, albeit artificial-sounding way.

It was impressive how he needed only seconds to break her emotional scale, seconds to drop her from terrified to turned on. Coming to think of it she didn't really know if it was his intention, and didn't know if she should be suppressing or succumbing to the wave of desire moving her. He looked quite hungry, the dark veins making an appearance in the hollows of his eyes.

It would be appropriate whether she was in danger of being harmed or something nicer, so she moved her arm to press the heel of her hand against his shoulder. She noticed he had changed his clothes. Dark jeans and a blank, black t-shirt that revealed the exact cut of his broad, muscular shoulders. A rush of unpermitted intoxication ran through her. Whatever route he planned to take with her in that moment, she began to feel uncharacteristically helpless.

"Are you hungry again?" she asked throatily, not knowing when she got so breathless. She tried to sound optimistic when she asked, like she meant to be a good hostess more than a mocking victim.

His lips curved as he descended with slowness upon her neck. "Yes," he whispered so close to her ear his lips brushed the fine bones, making her trembling problem a little more severe.

As usual he gave her an imprint of his lips first, breathing hot on her skin as his mouth fell agape against her, letting a low sound out to show his appreciation. A minute went by this way and he still hadn't bitten. Bonnie was beginning to feel herself shred into shivers for him. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take before things got bad. She needed him to bite. She needed to the pain to push past the other feelings.

Kai took in a nip of her skin and held it between his front teeth while his tongue lavished it inside his mouth.

 _This has to be it_ , she thought, putting more pressure into her hand against him. _Take your bite_.

He let go and widened his mouth over a large patch of her skin, only to wet it. She got the sense that he was preparing to feed less than he was trying something. But it seemed to be working in his favor. It was obvious by the response she noticed in her own body; her head fell back and her spine slackened, thrusting her neck at him for more. She could feel his pulse thickening in his neck where she rested her chin. His fingers, she noticed, were slipping underneath the elastic waistband of her Pennsylvania pants.

"What are you doing?" she whimpered.

"What am I doing?" he repeated against her buzzing artery.

"Uh-huh," was all she could get out in response as he trailed down and laid a deep kiss on the hollow of her throat.

"What I want," he admitted.

"Me?"

"If you want."

"Do you care?"

"Yes. And no."

"If I don't?"

"You do," Kai clarified. And with that he dropped to his knees on the asphalt, confidently tugging her pants, and panties, down to her ankles.

"No…"

He moved his hand up to her belly and flattened his palm over her skin, pressing her steady against the car. He nuzzled her hipbone with his nose before planting it with a kiss, from which he dragged his lips in downward curve. She let out an unexpected pant when his forehead brushed over her mound, following it up with a sharp gasp as she felt him, with no hesitation, slip his tongue between her labia.

"Fuck," she said in a short exhale as she tried to catch her breath. " _What are you_...?"

All the nerves bundled in her clit screamed as his tongue ran over it and even though she was panicking Bonnie could feel her cunt opening up for him already. It began to match in wetness what he gave in saliva. Tickled by all the sensation, Bonnie tried to press her knees together, the better not to have them buckle beneath her. Kai grumbled in disapproval and wrapped a hand around the back of her left thigh and lifted it over his shoulder. Bonnie had to slam both her hands onto his head to keep from falling over, and she wasn't thinking enough not to grip his hair to the root.

His access widened, Kai was able to do more for her than she ever imagined would be done. Bonnie had never had this before. Sex with Jeremy was great, but for some reason in their limited time and experience, they never got to _this_. And oddly, she was glad that even in this most confusing and petrifying of circumstances Kai was the first to give it to her. Something in his brutish will and the terror surrounding this encounter intensified her pleasure. Knowing that instead of being punished for the shear coexistence with humanity-off Kai, it seemed he was rewarding her.

His tongue slid tauntingly over her clit a few more times before she felt it widen and enter her. Cold sweat broke out over her skin and she moaned, wanting to knee Kai in the face for daring to make her feel so good. It was too much, she has having a hard time not feeling like she was about to have a heart attack.

"Stop," she begged.

It was almost traumatizing when his tongue licked its way back out of her and disappeared into his mouth where it belonged.

"Really?" he said, sounding husky like he himself was having difficulties maintaining composure.

"I…just…"

"You're wetter than I've ever seen any girl ever, and you look like you just escaped a nut house so you can't tell me this isn't feeling good."

"It is, but your…" she broke off to moan. He decided to run his tongue the length of her slit while he listened. Bonnie had to look away and spew her words at a quicker pace to make sure they all got out. "Your humanity is off you're confusing me!"

"How does it feel?" He started leaving little kisses over the skin above her pubic bone.

"Just stop! You said you don't want me to hate you. So listen to me when I say stop."

"What if I don't believe you when you say stop."

"It doesn't matter."

He shrugged. And stopped. But he didn't stand up. Bonnie looked in his dead eyes and was forced to reflect. She needed less than five seconds to realize she couldn't think straight anymore and it was futile to try functioning before fucking something, _anything_. Kai's tongue would be a perfect something. Picking up on her change of mind, he bumped his shoulder up on her thigh.

"So do you want this back, or..?"

"Fuck it," she whined and used her hands, still in his hair, to pull him into her. His tongue went immediately back to work, and with a renewed fervor as he gripped onto her hip bones and slammed her back against the car. His tongue's reentry was welcomed selfishly by the contracting walls inside her cunt. She could feel the tip of his tongue begging at the perfect spot and warmth spread throughout her lower abdomen, reaching out into her limbs. He let his front teeth bare against her exposed clit and she cried out at the hard pleasure of it, encouraging him to begin a rhythmic push and pull with his tongue that mimicked the way he had taken her there when it was his cock inside her, each movement grating his teeth over her nub.

Bonnie's legs rattled in pleasure she couldn't withstand, and the only one supporting her weight on the ground lost its ability to do so. She crumpled over Kai, who was strong enough to pin her back while he remained focused on finishing her off. And sooner than Bonnie could have predicted, she felt the indicative tingling throughout her entire reproductive zone. She felt her entire body seeming to clench around his tongue and she grabbed his face with her hands in a panic, knowing somewhere inside her she was making it difficult for him to breathe, but he shook her grip looser and persisted until she practically screamed into the empty highway.

When her voice returned to her throat, Kai gently let her feet back down to the ground and helped her steady herself. She tried to ignore the smug look on his face but she couldn't do much about her own smug look while he pulled her pants back up for her. After he stood, he picked her up over his shoulder like a feather and carried her around to the passenger door of the Corvette, which he opened and dropped her through into the seat.

Bonnie watched him transfer suitcases from the white car to Corvette's trunk, watched him get in the driver's side with an overly proud gait and settle in, and a sort of euphoric whimsicality claimed her. She didn't know in full what she was to expect of living with humanity-free Kai, but if tonight was any tell, maybe it wouldn't be as terrible as she blew it up to be based on her past experiences with vampires and their humanity drama. Shockingly.

He started the car and revved the engine.

"I guess we can be friends," she admitted, still a little breathy from her orgasm, and still unable to tell whether she really meant it or was just trying to affirm good graces. It was weird that it didn't feel weird to say it out loud to him. As if his lack of humanity was somewhat contagious. As if his pass not to care about most things infected her with a similar apathy, and one that wasn't drastically unlike the apathy she had the last few weeks alone in Mystic Falls. It simultaneously invigorated and scared her, because she wanted to be on his level, to not feel afraid, but she didn't want to start killing herself again. But here it was, apathy, staring her in the face from Kai's eyes, a new thing for them to have in common. A breach into companionship with a very dangerous person who could otherwise make her life much more miserable. Apathy. Her in.

He smiled and just said, "New York?"


	7. Chapter 7

Bonnie calculated that Kai's humanity switch had been off for about eight hours, and after their hours apart that she herself was about one hour and twenty odd minutes into adjusting to his new (or old) personality. Her experience of it so far had consisted of false terror, an awakening oral sex session and now tolerating his old grunge favorites at top volume while he sang along, also at top volume, with admitted skill although it was so enthusiastic and conceited, and he motioned to her while he sang as if serenading her these raunchy themes. She giggled at times, and nodded with feigned amusement to humor him, but overall his high-flying mood unnerved her just as much if not more than his silence the night before. She had no option but to conclude that she would never feel completely calm when he was near.

It pained her to think of this, and in contrast how horrible she felt in his absence. Friendship with Kai was going to be one of those _damned if I do, damned if I don't_ things in life. Happiness, simply put, could not be achieved in her prison world.

On that lovely note, she decided to dig her liquor out of her suitcase.

"Ooh, gimme!" Kai broke out of song to say when she found her bottle of whiskey, and he snatched the bottle out of her hands mid-sip, spilling whiskey all over her face and lap.

He took a long, deep gulp with one hand on the wheel and only his peripheral vision on the road ahead.

"Are you trying to kill us?" Bonnie asked without caring too much. Death by collision seemed less daunting than death by direct attack from her humanity-free cellmate.

He handed the bottle back to her, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"Want me to?"

"Not particularly, no."

"Come on. It sounds like fun, doesn't it? Crashing to our loud, fiery deaths into those trees up there?"

"No."

"Cascading off of a tall bridge into a large body of water?"

"No."

"If I jerk the wheel at this speed, how many times do you think we'll roll?"

"NO."

"Yeesh, relax. You're the one who got out the whiskey." He grabbed the whiskey out of her hands again and took a second gulp. She found a bizarre contentment seeing him drink like that. It meant she wasn't alone with it anymore. When she had packed the bottle she could tell he was judging her. Now that his humanity was off it seemed so were his inhibitions. Maybe it had something to do with verbally committing to friendship with him but when she watched him drink she felt like they indeed were friends. Friends with bad habits to influence on each other. Partners in crime.

She also enjoyed bantering with him, and so despite these feelings she informed, "Drinking and driving is typically frowned upon."

"Thank you, Officer Bonnie," he quipped, "I'll make a note of that in my little pocketbook of things to worry about when we go back to our home dimension in Not-A-Fucking-Chance-Land." Then he laughed at himself.

"I was just saying."

"Yeah, you're always just saying when you're uptight. Do I need to eat you out again?"

"Kai!" she scolded in more of a surprised snort while she tried to play off the immediate heat that rose to her cheeks.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"Don't."

"I'll pull over here."

"Seriously, I don't think I can handle that again for at least another twenty four hours," she said timidly. Afterward she realized that she was starting to talk to him like they were in a relationship. Discussing previous and future sexual acts with lightness and expectation.

"Twenty four hours. That I _will_ make a note of. Hey, you know Bonnie and Clyde? _Kai_ rhymes with _Clyde_. We're Bonnie and _Kai_. And we're like partners in crime. Kinda cool, right?"

 _Partners in crime_. Bonnie' eyebrow pinged up and she started to panic a little bit inside. Had they really spent so much time in isolation together that their thoughts were starting to align?

"Yeah," she agreed with half a heart, "Cool."

He took another drink.

"Really though, maybe you should wait to drink until we get to a hotel. Or at least to a slower speed."

"Scared?"

She shrugged.

"I'm good, trust me. You're drinking, I'm drinking, everything's fine. I'm tired of letting you have all the fun."

"Do you wanna switch so I can be the one driving when you get blackout drunk?"

He scoffed, "How many times would you guess I drove totally plastered on Zima in 1994?"

"I dunno."

"I don't either actually, but a lot. And only a few of those times did I kill myself. And all of those few times were on purpose. So…you can't really blame the alcohol. Moral of the story is calm down."

"How many times did you kill yourself?"

"You'd like to know, wouldn't you? Wanna compare tallies?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, uh, I know you killed yourself back in the old MF," he admitted with complete insensitivity. "Saw the blood all over the kitchen. That's rough."

She gaped at him for a moment. How could she forget to clean up the kitchen? How could she forget to worry about it? Thinking back on it now it was clear that her state of mind back in Mystic Falls must have really been bad. She turned away from Kai and leaned back into her seat, ready to be done with the conversation.

"Ooh, hit a nerve? Let it go, Bonnie, suicide is just part of the package when you live here. I think having each other will fix that, though, I really do. I mean I haven't really wanted to kill myself in this world. But I'm sort of invigorated just knowing you're in the same world as me, you know? Like I know what it's like to be completely alone, and that's way worse. And you think you hate me, so that must be how you feel. Completely alone, right? I get it, it feels bad."

"Stop comparing me to you, seriously."

He must've taken the hint. She was embarrassed. She didn't want to talk about it. And so things were quiet for as long of a time as this even more selfish, extensively careless version of him could handle the quiet. Which wasn't very long.

"You know when you and Damon first joined me in 1994 I thought you were just like me."

Bonnie banged her head back against her seat and rolled her eyes.

"How could you think that?"

"I thought you were a siphon," he hissed with an apparently lingering thrill.

"Because I had no magic," she remembered not fondly.

"I actually got excited for a minute. But then a little bit of eavesdropping and deductive reasoning kindly informed me that you weren't like me. You were just broken."

"Awesome word choice," she drawled.

He laughed, "Do you want some fries with that salt?"

"Please. I miss McDonald's."

"Believe me, Bonnie, if I've felt anything real ever it was for you, when you couldn't do something as simple as light a candle. I watched you trying to do this one spell—"

"You spied on me?"

"Duh."

"How much?"

"Do you really wanna know?"

"Oh my god," she buried her face in her hands. "What all did you see?"

"What all are you hoping I didn't see?" he asked devilishly and smirked.

"Anything without anyone knowing you were there. Because that's…just…ew."

"Hmm. I was already in Mystic Falls when you and Damon dropped in, so…suffice it to say I saw pretty much everything." Bonnie frowned. "On your end," Kai added, "Every time you had a fight and split ways I tended to follow you."

"You didn't have anything better to do?"

"Nope."

"Creep."

"I know it. But I think eighteen years of solitary confinement gives me a few ethics passes."

"I guess," she said. And slightly grimacing at her sympathy, "That must have been hard. Even for you."

He chuckled a little. "You say that like being a little angry made me subhuman."

"You killed your family."

"Everyone gets lonely, Bonnie."

Memories of that terrible time in the nineties began swirling in her brain. She rifled through each one for any hint of a third person in her and Damon's midst in the months when they were oblivious to Kai's presence. She guessed she could recall feeling watched much of the time but she had considered that feeling a reaction to the overall unnatural emptiness of the world. _Prison world spooks_ , as Kai put it. One night in particular stood out against the others.

It was a night about two months into her 1994 entrapment and she'd had enough. She left the boarding house for fresh air and, in a bout of temporary insanity, wound up doing something very unlike her. Now that he mentioned watching her more closely than Damon (probably because she was the Bennett and his ticket home more than any other reason), she was sure he was there. She hoped she was wrong, but if she remembered correctly there were goosebumps on her skin, and it wasn't from the cold.

"Was it you watching me the one time I went… _swimming_ …at the lake?" she dared to ask. To her dismay, a grin of fond remembrance spread over his face and she couldn't look at him anymore. She heaved a frustrated breath and looked out the window, afraid that losing her temper and saying something mean would be the fast undoing of her current safety. "Oh," she muttered, "Great."

"You know how dark it gets out there, I didn't really see anything."

"I knew someone was there, damn it."

"But you thought it was Damon, didn't you?"

"Who else would I think it was? But when I went back to the house he—"

"He was passed out drunk, and you felt like no one would ever look at you like you're beautiful again."

Bonnie's next breath was harder to rake in. She felt her jaws unclench to fall agape and quickly clamped her lips back together to scowl at him, but as hard as she tried she couldn't control it. He was amazing her.

"Yeah…" she had to say. And she had to ask, "How did you…?"

"I sense things," he shrugged.

"But seriously."

"Like I said. I was angry, and maybe a little bit crazy by the time you came into my life, I admit. Definitely at least one leg off the wagon. But I wasn't subhuman."

"Are you sure your humanity's off?"

"Don't test me, Bon."

* * *

New York bored her.

What was meant to be a turning point in prison world living merely functioned to depress her further.

"It's weird without people," she said to him as they strolled an utterly dark Times Square. She had to remind herself that it was just a copy; that the real place existed in the real world, that this version was dark because there was no one to light it. Kai claimed to have figured out how to light the public parts of the city in 1994 but she wasn't interested. Let it be. She could see Times Square as it was meant to be when she made it out of this godforsaken world. And if she never did, all the better not to tease herself with lacking attempts at real-world landmarks. All the better pretending it was a new world entirely.

"You'll like it tomorrow. You just need sleep," he said rather coldly. Dawn would be arriving any minute, so she nodded and they walked back to the car which he had parked dead in the middle of the street. He knew of an upscale hotel he promised would be to her liking, which it was. The refurbished building's curving halls, narrow staircases with wrought iron railings and many rooms dared her to get lost. Or to play hide and seek. It was a true find of his, one that made her grateful for his unique companionship; the chandeliers alone tempted her _not_ to demand her own room this time, feeling that Kai deserved a reward for showing her such extravagance. She was, however, in bad need of self-chastisement.

To her surprise, Kai seemed unaffected by her foot being put down. She had been careful about her tone when she said, "I think I need some alone time, do you mind if we sleep in separate rooms tonight?"

They had passed through the lobby with their bags and were tackling the staircase, Bonnie out of breath and Kai handling the climb without so much as a different speech pattern.

"Separate rooms," he scoffed. "Why not indulge and sleep on separate floors?"

"Really?" she asked. She couldn't tell by the look on his face whether he was being genuine or sarcastic.

"Oh yeah," he said, "True luxury is not a king size bed, room service and a jetted tub, mmkay? It's having space. Hands down most luxurious sleep I've ever had in a hotel was at a Best Western in Wyoming in 1994 because the place was dead and I didn't have any morons barging in on me."

"Huh." Bonnie didn't know what to say, and she slowed her ascent.

"Yeah, so, I'll take the top floor if you don't mind, not that I care if you mind. And you have your pick of the bottom twelve, go nuts."

"Thanks," she said without much feeling, and they parted ways at the next floor. He didn't make a playful grab at her. He didn't even say goodnight.

As Bonnie set up to unwind in her own room on the ninth floor, warding off Elena-related guilt and Damon-related anger and Caroline-related nostalgia all with an array of liquors in her own little liquor cabinet, complements of the hotel, she noticed herself sighing an awful lot. She downed a vanilla vodka shooter, winced, dumped her lingerie in the provided dresser and sighed as she scattered the bunched up lace panties through the drawer. She downed a whiskey shooter, walked over to the window to look out over the black, black city and sighed. She downed a cherry vodka shooter, collapsed on her bed and sighed again. She was quite drunk by the time she was able to realize that humanity-off heretic Kai was good to her, and somehow much worse than human pre-merge Kai. At least then something could still be seen in his eyes. She didn't allow herself many opportunities over the second half of their road trip to look so deep into his eyes, but whenever she accidentally looked _at_ them it seemed no one was home. Kai could still reason, and discuss former feelings with impressive exactness as if he still felt them, and she believed that he meant her no harm for now. She had wondered at one point during their drive if she actually needed someone just like him the way he was, someone who could be logical with her, and be harsh without being necessarily cruel. Someone who physically could not complicate her emotions with their own emotions as an additive. A rock. And yet…she was lying half naked and unexpectedly in need of comfort three floors beneath someone who twenty four hours earlier would have jumped at the opportunity to turn moody comfort into comfort sex, and that same person now was apparently totally uninterested in even sleeping on the same floor. He had said he wanted her; he licked her cunt like he meant it; now Bonnie couldn't help but feel the darkest shade of unwanted. Heretic Kai without humanity was indeed a new Kai, and not a reversion to "the old Kai" they sometimes referred to. This version didn't know what it was to want her, not like the Kai she had been sharing her world with.

Something about it crawled underneath her skin the way she imagined feelings must have done to Kai after his merge.


	8. Chapter 8

**Note to readers: I am sorry for the wait. My life has been a tornado of college, X files and college, and thoughts of ditching college to tackle the publishing industry with original, non-fandom projects. Really, I am a mess that only Bonkai fanfiction can clean up. Anyway, to make up for a wait that was longer than usual, here is a chapter that is somewhat longer than usual. I hope you enjoy it, and hang in there. I got it all mapped out! XOXO**

* * *

When she woke up, rays of late afternoon sunshine blazed over her back from the western window. She had forgotten to close it the night before and her skin was now paying the price, as the sun must have been setting on her for quite some time. She could already feel the ultraviolet heat retained in her flesh, and the telltale ache of a coming burn.

It took her no time at all to decide that she needed to get out for a while, and she had no desire to find Kai's room and let him know she was leaving the building. No more than thirty minutes passed before she was already on the street, heading towards Times Square where she knew there would be shops aplenty for the betterment of her suitcase wardrobe. Even in the daytime she couldn't help but feel haunted by the absence of people. The city was a desolate labyrinth of cold towers and dark shops, each block a dead silent corridor. Her own steps echoed off the walls of the buildings around her as she walked.

A jewelry shop's window display caught her eye. An array of plaster hands lay in an aesthetic row over black velvet, each boasting rings for men and women. The rings ranged from simple to elaborate and one in particular made her think of Kai. It was a simple black titanium band priced at three hundred dollars. He would've liked it…back when he deserved it.

She caught herself frowning in her reflection. She realized her nose was hardly an inch from the glass and had to take a short step back to purse her lips. Thoughts of Kai, before he left Mystic Falls, before she killed herself the first time in hopes of saving Elena and waking up a vampire, before all that…made her chest feel hard. Her heart was beating thick and fast.

She had to get him back. There was no question. She owed it to herself, and to him. Neither of them could go on much longer with him that way. It was less an inclination than a responsibility to bring him back.

The ring gave her an idea, one that she wasn't positive she would go through with, but she smirked nonetheless.

* * *

Kai curled his toes and exhaled freely into the open air above him. He loved waking up on his back, knowing that in sleep his body was aligned by a straight, loose spine. Often, since that fateful merge with Luke, he carried stress in his shoulders and these seemed entirely free of discomfort as he rolled them and stretched. He breathed in through his nose and smiled with a closed mouth and closed eyes, feeling the oxygen. When he felt sufficiently ready to rise, his eyes snapped open and he did as such.

He was alone. In the room and, by the lack of vibration in the air, in the building. He had the hotel all to himself.

"Where oh where," he sang to himself as he crossed to the bluing window and drew the curtain back, "has my little Bon gone?" The street all those stories below was empty.

She wouldn't dare try to run again, would she?

Confident that he would find her a harmless sum of blocks away, probably looking for clothes, he moseyed to the shower. He supposed he himself should find some decent attire while they were in New York. The humanity switch didn't seem to have any effect below the belt and he was starting to feel, with vicious intensity, the need to fuck. Making himself attractive with New York's finer clothing, he presumed, would make it easier to impress without having to try in the romance department. Not that anything romantic would have swayed her anyway.

He could see so clearly now. She acted like he and all his endeavors to get closer repulsed her, but it was such an obvious mode of self-preservation.

* * *

Bonnie's phone buzzed in the pocket of her new designer skinny jeans as she made her way up Fifth Avenue. Uncontrollably still excited to feel such a thing as someone trying to contact her, she broke her stride to fish it out and read her new text.

 **Kai:** where are you

She rolled her eyes and adjusted a few of the six or seven shopping bags decorating her limbs so she could use both of her out-of-practice hands to text back.

 **Bonnie:** Shopping. Duh.

She walked slowly, shamelessly staring at her phone screen until he responded.

 **Kai:** what a coincidence!

 **Bonnie:** Fresh out of bed and you're already stalking me.

 **Kai:** unless you're in the men's dressing room at J. Press, I'm nowhere near you

 **Bonnie:** Why are you texting me from the dressing room

 **Bonnie:** Do you need to send me pictures so I can tell you how bad you look?

 **Bonnie:** If you send me a dick pic I will kill you.

 **Kai:** good to know that's a thing, thank you.

Her next message was an image file. Squinting in apprehension with one secretly interested eye more open than the other, she clicked _Download_. In three seconds she found herself staring at a selfie that confirmed he was indeed where he said he was, and that he looked pretty great in a suit that wasn't bloody.

 **Bonnie:** Why the suit?

 **Kai:** why anything?

 **Bonnie:** You're annoying.

 **Kai:** I know you are but what am I

 **Bonnie:** …Annoying.

After that, he sent her an address with the instruction to meet him there at midnight.

* * *

Midnight arrived and Bonnie managed not to get herself too lost before she found the hole in the wall Kai had directed her to. Skeptical due to instincts to avoid dark, dingy trap-like locations, Bonnie still plowed ahead, curious more than fearful as to Kai's apparent plans for them that night. She opened the heavy, banged up metal door and quickened her pace through a short hallway until she reached a second door that was far nicer than the first. She swung it open and a cold gust of fragrant air rushed against her.

"You brought me to a club?" she chided, her voice bouncing off of the twenty foot ceiling as she shambled across the dance floor with all her bags. She hadn't been to many clubs in her life, but even without a drunk, sweaty crowd, this one was obvious. It was just a huge room with a long strip of a bar on one side, lounging sections in the corners, a ten foot glass fireplace on one wall adjacent to the bar, and the walls were decorated with larger than life abstract paintings.

"One of the hottest in New York," Kai responded from the other end of the room. Bonnie could just make out the short cocktail in his hand through the dim, blue lighting. And his hardened jawline, pouting lips, calculating eyes, square shoulders… Goosebumps traveled up her suddenly shaking knees.

"And you're still wearing the suit," she managed to say between oddly hard-to-catch breaths. "Why didn't you tell me to dress up?"

"I assumed when I sent you a picture of myself in a suit, you would get the _message_. Pun certainly intended."

Bonnie rolled her eyes and he sipped his cocktail.

"No matter," he continued, "You're hot in everything."

"'Scuse me?"

"Too hot," he seemed to mutter under his breath while avoiding eye contact with her.

"Anyway," Bonnie said just to change the topic, "we're here because…?"

"It's what people do, isn't it? Meet in clubs, vibe, hook up…"

"Hook up? You brought me here to pick me up?" She turned her head nonchalantly to get an idea of her surroundings, mainly the exits. Other than the door she entered through, there was a single hallway, probably for the ghost staff, and bathrooms. Maybe private rooms. Maybe a back entrance.

Kai shrugged, a subtle blur of embarrassment crossing his eyes but swiftly fading as his brows raised and it became clear to Bonnie that, although he couldn't care, he didn't really know what he was saying.

"You know _hook up_ doesn't just mean _hang out,_ right? Here in the twenty first century it pretty much means fuck."

"Tomato, _tomato_."

"Just saying. Study your urban dictionary before you just throw terms at me."

He sighed and scowled, "So do you want to put music on, or not?"

She paused to consider him. He was truly dashing in that suit and, while literally emotionally unavailable, there was a wall of free-game liquor behind him. She let out a tight breath and laid her bags across the bar.

"Why the fuck not."

"Yesssss."

" _My_ iPod," she conditioned, pulling the device out of her new Coach purse and handing it to him. "Just put it on shuffle."

"You're confident."

"Mhm," she nodded, knowing damn well she had good taste in music.

While Kai disappeared to fiddle with the sound system, she hopped behind the bar to study her options. There were too many. Vodkas of every brand and every flavor of those brands, more bourbon and general whiskey than even Stefan or Damon— _Damon,_ she gritted her teeth—had probably heard of. Enough rum to sustain a pirate for a lifetime. Enough gin to get her and Kai through one night at least.

When the first song was playing and her second shot of some unpleasant gin was on its way down her throat, she felt someone tugging at her belt loop. Her squinting eyes opened and Kai was already standing beside her, dead in the eyes, urging her toward the open floor.

"Hang on," she rasped, pouring another shot. She tossed it back like water and only when she was certain that these measly three shots were sufficient did she let him lead her away from the bar.

"Are we really dancing?" she laughed as she staggered along behind him, "Is this like our thing now?"

"I guess it is," he grinned. They stopped in the middle of the room. Bonnie couldn't help but smile back at him, though she knew it meant nothing to the little voids in his eyes. "You'll have to lead though."

"I don't even know how to dance to this, except solo."

"Show me," he said, smirking.

"I'm not anywhere near intoxicated enough."

The song ended and another started. It was playing for half a second and Bonnie already knew that it was The Spice Girls. She felt her cheeks heat up.

"Oh god, I sort of forgot this was on my iPod," she giggled uncomfortably.

He shrugged, "It's danceable."

"Extremely," she agreed, a slew of fond memories of slumber parties with Elena and Caroline filling her mind. Without thinking, she started talking. "We choreographed our own dance to this whole song when we were, like, six. Well, Caroline choreographed it. Elena and I just hit our marks."

"Is this a product of the nineties?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"Yeah…you don't know who this is?"

He shook his head. She crossed her arms.

"You don't know the Spice Girls…?"

His expression remained blank. "Must've missed 'em."

"Your poor, poor man-child. Spice Girls came out after you got put away, I guess."

"Shame. Still remember the dance?"

"You just want me to put on a show, don't you?"

"Guilty."

"Well, I do happen to remember the dance. But you're not getting it."

"Tease."

"Hey. If you wanna be my lover, _you_ have got to give."

"I'm suddenly glad I missed the rest of the nineties."

Bonnie smiled in pity for him, and decided to start freestyle bopping her way back to the bar for more alcohol. Kai joined her and together they crammed shots into their mouths like old friends, interlocking their arms at the elbows. It was Bonnie's idea. She hoped it would reinforce in him a sense of closeness.

In time, Bonnie's face was numb and they were both jumping vivaciously to the beat. An unprecedented amount of giggles left her wide open mouth and her stomach muscles hurt from laughing. Kai, while it was all empty, still had a way about him. He knew how to make her laugh and it seemed that he enjoyed it. She wished it was real. She wished he was himself. Had she been a nicer companion to him, she wouldn't be bouncing unstably in a drunken spree to suppress the nostalgia she was now certain she had for the dangerous, absent man whose eyes wouldn't stay on her as long as they used to.

A flash of that same emotional ghost cut through her, the one she felt when she woke up in Pennsylvania. Just as then, the room tilted for a second and she believed it so well she physically accommodated with her body. She bent to her left so as not to fall.

"Whoa," Kai said, grabbing her elbows and pulling her back upright. He laughed, thinking she was so drunk that she was falling. Maybe she was. Who knew for sure when such emotional forces came and went so fast? The room was normal by the time he helped her up. The feeling was gone.

A slower song came on and Bonnie tried to catch her breath. She didn't get a chance. Kai's arms descended upon her. He pulled her into his chest and began to mimic the way they moved at the hotel in Pennsylvania. She wanted to make a snide comment about him being desperate but didn't want to lose her opportunity.

"Kai…" she was sure to say with a sensual lilt as she laid her head on his chest.

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

"Maybe."

She moved one of her hands to rest on his chest.

"You spent decades wanting to take your rightful place as the Gemini coven leader…" she began, expecting to feel him stiffen at the intro. He only nodded and _mhm_ 'd. "Do you ever think about that anymore?"

"What do you mean? I am the leader now."

"Of no coven," she corrected harshly. "You're the only Gemini left."

"I've thought about that, yeah."

"And you're stuck here. If you ever did want to start a new coven, there's no one here."

"There's you."

She blanched at that thought and quickly rejected it, "I'm a Bennett."

"Covens have been known to intermarry. Sometimes they… _merge_." She breathed through her nose, trying to quell new images in her head she wasn't ready to face. "I would have to be human, though," he continued.

"Why?"

"To get you pregnant," he stated with stern objectivity. There was no feeling behind it, neither excitement nor doubt in its factuality or that Bonnie would be the one he did such a thing to.

All in a whirlwind of two seconds, heat flushed through her entire body, she laughed a hard laugh to push the idea as far away from her as possible and slapped his chest. He smiled darkly with her, not a trace of a joke in it. Her laughter died down to a breathy sigh as she tried not to hyperventilate.

"Not necessarily," she thought out loud.

"Elaborate."

"I haven't been to New Orleans myself, but I heard a rumor that a former hybrid acquaintance of mine is a father now."

"Hybrid what?"

"Vampire-werewolf."

"So you're saying—"

"You have as good a chance at doing the same," she finished, straightening his collar.

"Interesting," he said, a subtle new aggression in the way he moved with her.

"Not with me, of course," she informed. "Since this is my world, I'm kind of—"

"Stuck in time, can't get pregnant, yeah yeah. Hey Bonnie?"

"What?"

He stepped in closer and hung his head at the side of hers, and she could hear his breath in her ear. Receiving him more eagerly than she anticipated, she slid her hand up to his neck. He was warm from moving around with her so much.

Rather seductively, he said, "You wouldn't be trying to coax me into doing something unfavorable like, I don't know, getting us out of this beautiful prison world…would you?"

He pulled back and looked coldly into her eyes and she worried he could see clear through her. She lied anyway.

Shaking her head she mumbled innocently, "No."

"Because, while you're getting all this information out of me, and _even if_ you wanted to help, I don't care about starting a family, or reforming my coven. Not anymore. And that's bliss."

She let her head tilt passively back, keeping her eyes trained on his. She heard him perfectly but she wasn't quite ready to give up on him. She opened her lips a fraction.

He looked down at her and for a second she swore she could see him in there. It disappeared, though he was still looking at her. Maybe he would still read her expression.

"What?" he urged, without taking much more time to get the message she was trying to send with her eyes. Apparently he still needed a verbal breakdown.

"You can kiss me," she admitted softly, "if you want."

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. She felt his hand slide down her waist and clench her hip while his face dipped, and her heart started screaming. What was this? A month and a half ago she was wondering if she should fuck him just to get nature out of her system and resume indifference towards him, and now she was radiating from the core just for his kiss. It startled her and she wanted to fight with every ounce of her being to pass it off, but even she could no longer ignore the intensity of it. Worse: even in this unfortunate phase, more than she couldn't stay away from him, she knew that she wouldn't.

His mouth was next to hers and she braced herself for him. Then he laughed.

His body shook under her hands with the violence of his laughter and he threw his head back to let it all out. She didn't understand what was so funny.

"What?" she asked, faking a half smile while she tried to catch up on whatever she was missing.

"I don't know," he said in giggles. "Kissing just seems so…"

"So…what?" she asked, her fake smile fading and her heart dropping.

"Cheesy." He took his hands off her to rub his eyes, because actual tears forming in them. These were the first tears she had ever seen in his eyes; of course they would be from joy at her expense.

Unable to hide her disappointment, she decided to turn away. Maybe head back to the bar. She took a step away from him and he caught her arm.

"Hey," he said, most of his white teeth still revealed in a smile. "Where are you going?"

She ran a hands through her hair and fixed her features. "I need another drink."

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do," she assured, trying to pull her arm out of his grip.

"No," he corrected. She watched all humor about him turn to rigidity.

"Kai, I'm fine."

"Your blood doesn't taste as good when you drink."

"Your point being?"

"You can fuck yourself up all you want after you feed me."

"Uh, didn't know we were doing that tonight. You fed like two days ago. And the day before that."

"Your point being?" he mocked.

"I still have the rest of the week before you get to feed again. You were fine with the whole once-a-week model before."

He tightened his grip and jerked her back into his chest.

"Fine is an overstatement. I was being polite, something I don't care to be anymore. I don't even know why we're still discussing this, really. Liquor is apparently your life support so let's get it over with before you dry out or something."

"No. I want my week."

"Bonnie," he warned. "I want blood. You have two seconds to give me what I want or I will break your beautiful neck and drink from the cracks."

She scowled in disbelief. "You said you wouldn't hurt me."

"Did I?"

"Yes."

"And you believed me?" She didn't answer this time, knowing that it didn't matter what she said. Humanity-off honeymoon phase was over. "Oops," he said for her. He flipped her around and hugged her against him. She felt his heart beating on her back. Simultaneously the familiar pulse between her legs started up. _Something is wrong with you_ , she thought to herself. Somehow something somewhere along the line must have been rewired in her brain, because his awful behavior was becoming a slight turn-on. The more restrictive his grip, the harder her heart beat; the more vicious his tone, the wetter she felt; the more threatened she felt, the more she wanted him to bend her over and take her from behind, right there in the middle of the room with nothing to hold on to but each other. But, despite being drunk, she had enough control to pretend none of this was happening inside her head, and enough rationality to act how she was supposed to: afraid.

"You haven't fed since you turned it off. How do you know if you'll be able to stop?"

"I don't. Wanna bet on it?"

"Go fuck your—" she started, and then shrieked as she felt his fangs pierce the skin. He couldn't even wait for the conversation to finish.

There was a new savagery to the way he fed. By the amount of pain she felt, it seemed he didn't mind how much skin he tore on his way to the artery. And she was losing more blood more quickly. The edges of her vision began to blacken almost instantly.

* * *

When his stomach was somewhat full and the witchy side of him felt the dimness in Bonnie's life force, he ripped his fangs out and shoved her body away. The farther the better, the easier not to crawl atop her and just finish. In the force of his shove, she stumbled some six or seven feet until falling forward to land on her hands and knees. He was surprised she was still even that strong.

She started crawling toward the exit. He rolled his eyes and wiped his mouth on his suit.

He figured she was right, it was probably time to head back to the hotel. She was in no shape to carry her own bags, so he went to the bar and grabbed those. He probably wouldn't have cared if not for the inconvenience it was bound to cause him when she realized her stuff was left behind.

As he caught up to her with all her things, she was pulling herself to her feet with the help of the door handle. He glanced at the front of her new blouse as she stood and beamed with pride at how bloody it was. Her neck, too, had a sheet of red down it and he found it beautiful, despite the look of disappointment on her face when they made eye contact.

She resumed stumbling out into the hallway, then onto the street, Kai following a detached distance behind her.

They got as far as Times Square, a landmark between the club and their hotel. Until then he'd completely forgotten how he had spent his first hour of the night. He wondered if Bonnie had seen the reflective glow up in the clouds for the few blocks they walked before actually hitting Times Square, for its light was so bright. When she rounded a corner ahead and caught her first sight of it, he knew she was stunned. He crept his way up to her stiff body until he too could see all the flashing, all the red, all the grunge era music videos he programmed to play on the screens that normally played something they couldn't access from the prison world.

He couldn't admire his work for much longer, however, as Bonnie collapsed right there on the sidewalk. He laughed at first, taking it as some kind of joke for some reason. Then he realized she had actually died.

"Damn it, Bonnie."

Hearing the tone of genuine displeasure in his voice, something stirred in him. He dropped her bags and crouched down to where she lay. He didn't know what he was expecting as he turned her body over. It was such a human thing to physically check for vital signs, and it almost indicated to him that he might be wishing she wasn't actually dead. He pressed two fingers to the other side of her neck, as the one was comically torn open and no pulse-checking surface was currently available.

Nothing beat back against his finger. Her heart had already come to a complete halt. A second stir, like an uncomfortable twinge, happened in him and he growled in frustration.

Now he had to carry ninety shopping bags _and_ a dead body back to the hotel.

…Well, he didn't _have_ to.


	9. Chapter 9

Somewhere in between a blissfully dreamless state of sleep and Kai's hyperawareness of the empty hotel room in which he slept, a foreign object crashed its way through.

The earsplitting sound of his bedside lamp breaking on contact with something hard at high velocity was the first thing to rouse him.

Kai shot up to find Bonnie standing at the side of his bed, still dressed in her new outfit that he had ruined with his messy eating, and wielding a wooden baseball bat. She wore a fire in her eyes he had never seen before. It was so surprising, he laughed.

"How long were you standing there before you decided to break my lamp with a rookie bat?"

She mirrored his laughing face. Then it vanished without a trace as she swung her bat back and brought it forth on the framed artwork above his bed. Glass shattered for feet into the air and rained down upon the bedspread, but Kai had already sped to the other side of the room unseen. She didn't mind taking her time or releasing precursory anger on other objects as she made her way to him. He had chosen the biggest suite on the floor and his room had many more decorations for her to run through. She hesitated for nothing.

Another frame was beaten off the wall and a decorative vase was knocked across the room, her coldly hooded eyes not leaving him for the smallest fraction of time, before he decided to cloak himself.

He wasn't afraid. Really, he was the opposite of afraid. She wanted to play with bats. That was a game he knew pretty well.

"You cloaked yourself," she sneered, and after hearing her voice for the first time in this violent episode he knew he was in some deep shit with her. He smirked invisibly as he silently side-stepped out of her way, just missing the swing of her bat by a hair before it collided with another lamp.

"Coward. I thought about using magic to get back at you," she panted as her McQueen heels crunched over shards of glass, "But, as I'm sure you know, sometimes it's more satisfying to hurt someone with your own hands. To put in _effort_ ," she grunted as she batted a glass of coke from a table to a far wall, not stopping to watch the glass ride in a river of cola down the wallpaper. "I want to make you bleed, Kai." She continued navigating around the room with ease and remarkable speed. Now that she couldn't keep her eyes on him, she abandoned her predatory gaze and focused primarily on the wanton devastation of the hotel room. She did not limit herself to easy targets; when she ran out of small objects to swing at in one area, she used her free hand to pull drawers out of the dresser and hurl them at the walls, which became punctured. When she came across his suitcase, she unzipped it and hurled that just the same, strewing its contents amid the rest of the debris. When that didn't satisfy her, she upturned a large desk.

 _Stronger than you look_ , he thought, burning to uncloak himself and see who was stronger.

The only lights left to flick unexpectedly on and ring with surges of energy were studio dimmers embedded in the ceiling. Noticing the flickering as it worsened with her rampage, she stood on the bed, and on tables and chairs until she had plugged her bat up into each bulb. Tiny fragments fell into her hair, onto her clothes, and some cut her skin, but she shook these off with the cool poise of a woman who knows she can always do more damage than that which has been done to her.

She stalked into the kitchenette where Kai stood watching her with pleasure. She dragged the end of her bat high along the wall, sending all four framed pieces in a photography series cascading to their destruction on the floor. Kai could hear her heartbeat pounding, her breath heavy with the excitement in attack, and he almost felt jealous. He was finding himself so mesmerized by this unyielding version of her that he was content to remain watching, either until she wore herself out or bored him, or (hell forbid) found him.

Bonnie slowed her riot and hooked her wrist around the back of a kitchen chair. Curiously he watched her drag the chair loudly on its back legs to the center of the living area, letting the legs smack against the hardwood when she placed it where she wanted it.

"Sit," she commanded to the open air, her chin held high as she circled around the chair, holding the baseball bat at intimidating rest over her shoulder.

He was so entranced by her confidence, he wanted to obey. Just to see where this was going. Just to see how bad Bonnie Bennett could get.

She stopped circling the chair, something having caught her eye. She leaned sideways toward the nearby coffee table and, rather than flipping it over, pinched up a small half-eaten bag of Funyuns that sat there and dropped it on the seat of the chair. _Bait._

And Kai shrugged.

He waited to uncloak himself until he had already picked up the bag of Funyuns and sat down. It didn't startle her when he suddenly appeared, exactly where she wanted him, munching away. What he didn't anticipate was having the bag violently batted out of his hands. He yelped, knowing at least one of his fingers was broken. Instead of reacting with an outburst of equal measure, he turned his head a fraction so he could see her out of the corner of his eye and smirked. He knew she hated it when he smirked.

Behind him, she leaned her upper body against the back of the chair as the bat descended in front of him like a bar. It was stopped at his neck and she pulled it towards her enough to rest one of her elbows on the handle and the length of her forearm along the bat, under his chin. He could feel it pressing in on his Adam's apple, a threat to choke him if he said the wrong thing.

"Kinky," he commented. To no surprise, the bat was pulled tighter and he became aware of Bonnie's breath teasing in his ear as she laid her chin in the crook of her elbow that rested on the tip of the bat.

"What do I have to do," she spoke softly, "to get your humanity back up and running?"

Kai wrapped his hands lightly around her arm and the bat, feeling his broken bones heal faster in contact with her magic. As the structure of his hand normalized, he assessed calmly whether to use physical strength, siphon the shit out of her or let this play out nonviolently.

He swallowed against the bat choking him and cleared his throat obnoxiously, hoping she would roll her eyes the way she always did and take the hint. A second later, after presumably she did just that, he was given a quarter inch of freedom. He murmured something inaudible. Bonnie sighed and loosened her bat an extra inch.

"Striptease," he croaked, dramatizing the symptoms of a damaged windpipe.

"I'm serious."

"So am I."

She raised her voice over his, "I'm not giving up on you, Kai."

"Why not? Everyone else has."

"Tell me more about that."

"I'm stating it as a fact. One that doesn't hurt me the way you might think it does, so don't waste your time drudging through my past for some kind of humanity trigger."

"There has to be something. I want— I _need_ you back. I want to go to Paris, and maybe other places, with you, Kai. After everything you've done to me, I want to go with _you_. But I will not set foot on an aircraft with you like this."

"I think you're getting me mixed up with someone who gives half a fuck."

The bat at his neck loosened and slid away, off of him and out of Bonnie's hands, clattering to the floor. She stepped around the chair and stood before him, her hands straight at her sides. She was vulnerable without her bat, but she knew it. She meant for him to see it. That she was standing before him with no defense but her magic, stored away in her lifeless hands. He looked up to her face and saw that all her rage had washed away, and she was now pleading with him in her eyes. The dry blood across her neck had flaked off in parts. The stain on her shirt was a stiff, rusty scarlet. His gaze drifted back up to her eyes and she was so pretty, he thought.

"You just left me on the street," she said as evenly as if she was accusing him of forgetting to do a household chore. Or maybe that was just how he interpreted it, because the tone didn't match the look she was giving him and now he was getting confused. "I woke up, covered in blood, on the sidewalk, in the dark, all alone. Because you couldn't bring me back here with you, you couldn't stay there with me, you couldn't even just drag my body to a better spot and leave me inside somewhere. Because you don't care."

"That is what happened," he agreed, nodding without emotion. "You must have really liked Times Square, huh? You looked at it and literally just dropped dead."

Bonnie narrowed her eyes in pain.

"Kai," her voice cracked, "You killed me."

It was like she was trying to get an emotional point across to him, and he understood it. He did. He just had such a hard time caring, especially when it wasn't true.

"Um," he held up one finger and shook his head, "I didn't kill you."

"Yes. You did."

He blinked in sudden frustration, "No, Bonnie, I did not kill you. You died of extreme blood loss."

"Because you tore a hole in my neck!"

"And you didn't stick around for the healing portion of the evening."

"God, you are such an asshole."

He shook his head again and couldn't stand to look at her, not really knowing why.

"I didn't kill you," he reiterated in a mumble, more for himself to hear because he needed to have the last word. A visual memory of Bonnie crumpling to the sidewalk in a bloody heap flashed through his mind and a weird tickle made him itch to leap out of his chair and bite her again. But she was leaning forward and her left knee was digging into his thigh and he didn't know what was happening. He looked straight ahead and her bloody blouse draped from her chest to skim his nose. He closed his eyes and laid his head back, prepared to let whatever the hell she thought she was doing just happen, because so far it seemed like it was going well for him.

Despite having spent the last couple hours dead, she smelled like roses. He noticed her hands were sliding down his arms and gently guiding his hands around to the back of the chair. She whispered something and he suddenly felt as if someone stood behind him wrapping a rope around his wrists. He tried to jerk them out of Bonnie's grasp and found that he could not move them, nor could he move his arms or upper body. Bonnie tensed against him. She placed her hands on her shoulders and pushed herself a pace back from him, and he still couldn't move. There was a spell, an unseen rope, restraining him.

"What are you doing?" he asked lowly. She narrowed her eyes at him and didn't answer, but turned to the window and extended her arm straight out. She motioned to the side with her hand and the curtains swiftly parted. It was still dark out, but barely. Kai watched her hesitate slightly, her arm still outstretched, her fingers curling.

" _Vatos_."

The exposed window then exploded out the side of the building, leaving a hole in the wall. He was unfortunate to have chosen the biggest suite on the floor, for its windows faced the East.

He laughed, "So you're going to torture my humanity back on?"

"Whatever works," she agreed, turning back to him, crossing her arms.

"Makes sense. Because you trying to kill me is totally going to make me want my feelings back."

"I've watched Elena go through this with Stefan. Tying you to the chair is step one. The rest is dirty work."

Kai worked his fingers around, feeling for the tightest part he could reach in his restraint, somewhere he might be able to press on the rope spell and siphon it.

"Wow, you'd do dirty work just for me?" he small-talked to keep her attention off his adjusting posture. But she was onto him.

"You can't siphon that so I'd sit back and relax if I were you."

Kai grated his back teeth. Why did she have to be so fucking clever? And how did she manage to coat a spell in some kind of siphon shield? Because she was right, he was feeling where the spell was on his wrists and he couldn't suck it up. Was she designing her own spells when they were apart? Exactly how had she spent all those weeks alone in Mystic Falls? He didn't dare ask her any of these questions; it might show weakness, or fear, neither of which he had ever known himself to have.

"So I guess we wait?"

She sighed, "Or you flip your switch." She backed up until she reached the gaping window and leaned against the sill.

"Why are you so bent on it?"

"I can't live with you like this. I would rather kill us both. So…I hope you make the right choice."

"And in your humble opinion, that would be having my humanity and your approval."

He watched her hand fly up to her hair and dishevel it in what he perceived to be nervous movement for the sake of movement. Like she didn't know what to say, or what to do with her body, but sensed she was supposed to be saying or doing something. What was she uneasy about? Was it guilt for tying him up and trying to kill him? Was it anxiety for his impending death? Did she want him to die? He didn't think so, but he was aware of her disregard for her own life. Perhaps in a sick way she herself wanted to die, and to place indirect importance on her own life by looping someone else's in with it.

"I don't know anymore," she finally said wistfully, sadly. "I think at this point I'll just go with whatever you decide." Her hands dropped to her lap and her fingers knotted tightly together. He could see the fleshy sides of her hands whiten with how tight she was holding them.

"So not only would you do dirty work for me," he said, "but you'd die for me too."

"Not for you. For me."

"You know this way is no far cry from who I really am. You're not saving me, Bonnie. You're just suppressing me."

"Poignant."

He chuckled lightly. And it was then, because of her sudden deflation, he decided to fix her with hungry eyes. Or maybe he didn't decide. Something was going on inside him, something he didn't authorize. All he knew was he looked at her, and she looked at him, and a counterpoint was met, and his heart changed pace. He blinked thrice in half a second, experiencing a shudder through his entire body, and she could see it, whatever was happening to him. Her lips set apart, she breathed in louder than she knew. She stared. In attempt to end it, he curled his lip and willed his fangs to emerge.

Against expectation, Bonnie leaned off the window and approached him. One step and he desired to propel into her, fangs first. Two steps and he questioned her intention. Three steps and he was certain she had to be the most stubborn woman he had ever met. In her darkening eyes he could see his reflection, and his own eyes stared back at him with more desperation than he was aware. This was what she was seeing, and what was causing her to approach him, a dangerous animal, as if he wouldn't bite.

"Are you in there?" she asked. She reached out and touched his face. Her hand was soft and calling. Purposely this time, he acknowledged to himself how much he wanted to break free so he could drag her over the debris on his bed and fuck her right on top of it, and he let this too show in his eyes. A shiver, unheard by her own ears, sounded from chattering teeth in her mouth. So he had gotten to her. She was getting to him with those frowning heart-shaped lips.

He glanced down to her body bending over, as she sought a closer look into him, and he noticed he could see her bra through her falling neckline. It was a creamy yellow lace he couldn't relieve the impulse to bury his face in.

 _Come closer_.

"I don't recall seeing that in your suitcase," he whispered.

Hundred by hundred he saw the goosebumps rise on her arms. Her front teeth clenched before her lips pursed. If he pushed just a bit more maybe he could convince her to unbind him without having to flip the switch, but time was running out. Light was slowly filling the room, overshadowing his patience as it spread.

"Bonnie," he continued in a calm and quiet tone. "I'm not turning it back on. If you have anything to say to me before you kill us, you should say it now."

Sunlight's first small beam shot into the room, at level with Kai's belly. What wasn't shaded by Bonnie began to sizzle and he hissed.

"Do it, Kai," she urged with the faintest hint of worry.

"Unbind me, Bonnie," he responded without a hint of any emotion whatsoever.

"I don't remember the unbinding spell."

"Bullshit!" he groaned as the sizzling increased. He was no stranger to the pain of burning alive. He had killed himself that way once or twice in 1994. But those cocky suicides were long after he discovered that he couldn't stay dead. This time was real. Though the pain was not new, the threat of oblivion certainly was. Now that he was standing on the edge of it he realized that he was not quite ready not to exist. But he was less prepared to lose this game of chicken with Bonnie, Bonnie whose facial expression remained as steely as he made his.

Meanwhile the scent of burning flesh rose in smoke from his deteriorating body.


	10. Chapter 10

"Turn it on!" she screamed as she thrust the heel of her hand into his forehead, grabbing his hair in her fist. She had been holding onto the line between the humanity on and off versions of him, holding on for dear composure. Even when he tried to blur that line by drawing comparisons over it, she managed to stand her ground: that if he didn't come back to humanity, they were both going to die.

The ends of his hair began to catch on fire with the rest of him. The heat spread to her hand and she retracted in a hissing panic.

Maybe she was crazy…maybe she was losing herself in the moment. But the floor felt like it was shaking. It traveled up her legs and soon the small hairs on every inch of her skin rose in a frenzy, because the air itself began to vibrate. Intuitive to this crumbling of the world, pain like nothing she had ever experienced was born in her heart and veining outward. It was worse than any of the deaths she had felt during her time as the anchor between the living and the other side. _Makes sense_ , she thought. They weren't with the living, or on the other side. They weren't moving from one side to another. Where they were going was just…nowhere.

Somewhere in the excruciating spiral of her pain, she heard Kai's first sound of agony. It was something like a shout. It formed no words. They were dying.

She could take no more of it.

Fighting the urge to hold herself tight until the end of the pain, she stuffed her hand in her pocket and just came out with it. She had hoped Kai would earn it, but the justice wasn't worth dying for just yet. And anyway, with all the trauma sparking to life because of his death, she wasn't even sure if he hadn't yet succumbed. Maybe he was flipping the switch back on and she was missing it beneath the sound of her own screaming.

Pinching it tightly between her thumb and forefinger, hoping to hell she wouldn't drop it, she ducked behind Kai's chair and slid the black ring onto the middle finger of his left hand, the only one accessible through her rope spell.

The comedown wasn't instant. She knew the ring was working because the damage happening to Kai's body began to reverse, but the room didn't stop rumbling with impending collapse until his rapid vampiric healing was almost complete. He was panting.

Bonnie fell back onto the floor in exhaustion.

She lay there for a few moments, recuperating. She listened to Kai's breath even out in the chair before her, watched him lay his head back against the chair. He seemed relieved. That was a good sign, wasn't it? Relief was an emotion…right?

She willed herself to move just enough to crawl around his chair and get a better look at him. Her hands, knees and elbows thudded on the hardwood. He sensed her movement and raised his head, his eyes settling on hers and staying there for a quiet minute. She couldn't tell what was in them…humanity or rage, or the same emptiness… Black and red burns across his face smoothed into their natural peachy tone and he now looked as if he hadn't just been on fire. He shifted to let his knees splay out in relaxation, still staring her down and catching his breath. She noted the way his muscles were bunched up against the chair in his restraint, the way his chest rose and fell, larger than it was when they first met, more inviting to touch.

"I hope that was worth it," he finally said, rupturing a rather pregnant silence. And Bonnie's heart leapt.

"Are you…?" she breathed.

"I'm back," he nodded, his bottom canines precariously noticeable in the way he held his lips open.

" _Thank god_!" Bonnie exclaimed, clambering to her feet and lunging into him. She didn't care if it was weird that she had just tried to kill him and now was practically climbing into his lap to give him a proper hug. She did away with those complicated details and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his hair, loving how it tickled her nose, how it smelled of some designer fragrance he must have picked up when he shopped, and loving how he even picked up a cologne in the first place for how adorable that struck her. He was back, he was back. _Her_ Kai was back. She could feel his stubble in pinprick hundreds stabbing her shoulder as his chin dug into her, and she realized he couldn't hug her back until he was released.

"Are you still trying to kill me?" he choked and she unlocked her hug.

"Sorry, I uh…I'm just really glad."

"You'll be gladder if I'm not tied up."

"Sorry. I'm sorry," she stumbled over her words, "I would've helped you right away but only one of us bounces back from third degree burns without cosmetic surgery."

He smiled and chuckled a little at her. Bending her legs so that she sat in an awkward half-straddle, she reached around Kai's body and laid her hands on top of his, where she had spelled the first knot of the rope.

" _Solve_ ," she whispered, and watched his hands slowly come apart.

"That simple, huh?" He stretched his fingers and cracked them as he brought his arms around and looked down at his hands. "You made me a daylight ring. When?"

Bonnie smiled and found that she couldn't stop. When he looked at her, he smiled in mimic, though it was only half his mouth.

"Yesterday."

She watched his dark eyes travel along the ring on his finger in examination, the curl to his lip never faltering. He was pleased. And she couldn't stop herself. The joy and the relief pinging around hot in her chest insisted it. Bonnie grabbed his face by the corners of his jaw and pressed her mouth to his. She surprised herself by the violence with which she kissed him, not shy at all about the instant entry she forced to lick heavily at his tongue. And she drew the tip of her tongue along the pointed ends of his dormant fangs in a reverence she couldn't herself understand. She felt his heartbeat thud from his neck against her hands before he moved his mouth in cooperation. His hands slid over her thighs and around to her bottom and his fingers slipped snug into her back pockets so he could viciously pull her body tighter against his. She made a sound of surprise and pulled her face away to take a breath. Any further with him and she would end up giving him everything, she just knew it. Even though she'd done it twice already, now didn't seem like the right time to start taking her clothes off for him. There was wreckage everywhere. And knowing the way Kai liked to fuck, there was no doubt she would end up with an ass full of glass. And anyway, he was probably exhausted from his near death experience. He never asked to be straddled and kissed and otherwise taken advantage of.

"Sorry," she whispered before giving him one last, sweet kiss, which he accepted with his eyes closed in savor.

"Let's get out of here," he whispered onto her lips.

"Now?"

"I would _love_ to get some sun."

"Okay," she shrugged.

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Yeah."

"Go find one of those bellhop luggage cart things and bring it up here?"

"Why?"

"I'm sort of anticipating leaving here with more than we brought," he said, smirking and giving her a look. He must've been referring to all of her shopping bags. She didn't know how much stuff Kai had accrued so far, but it was possible that she grabbed more than could fit in her suitcase. Regardless, not carrying anything all the way to wherever they were going sounded nice.

"Yeah, sure," she agreed, and slid off his lap with more sensuality than she intended.

All through the halls she ground her teeth and ran her tongue around her mouth. She could still taste him and just thinking about it made her insides squirm for more, or at least to be back in the room with him. Now that she had him back, nothing seemed as urgent. The original plan to trick her way home was still in place, but…one thing at a time.

When she returned to Kai's room wheeling a luggage cart in, he was just finishing packing up the suitcase she had ravaged. He looked up and smiled darkly, giving Bonnie the feeling that she would pass out if he kept looking at her that way. She darted her eyes elsewhere to protect her dignity and left the cart to stand by the window. She crossed her arms and shifted her weight nervously as she watched him zip his suitcase and load it onto the cart.

"Where are we going now?"

"Paris," he said conclusively, as if it should be obvious. And he sauntered in her direction with an attractive gleam in his eyes. Bonnie began to wring her hands.

"Today?" she said lightly, surprised. "You feel up to piloting an hours-long, overseas flight? Don't you think you should rest?"

"No," he said, stopping to settle his hands casually on the back of the chair he had just been tortured in. "But you should."

Bonnie had time only to cock her head and catch a flash of the chair in the air before Kai brought it across the side of her head.

It hurt like hell but her small body was effectively put down. Horrified she looked up at her attacker, whose eyes she could now see were just as cold and empty as ever. He kneeled down and placed his hands on the sides of her face.

" _Phasmatos somnus_ ," he commanded. At once, everything faded out.

* * *

Triumph.

Kai breathed powerfully as he glared down at Bonnie's unconscious body. Poor Bonnie didn't even see it coming, couldn't tell he was the best faker in the world.

Not carefully, he dragged her across the room and hoisted her onto the luggage cart. He chuckled to himself, amused that she hadn't even caught on when he asked her to go get it. Now she was on it.

One of her legs flopped onto the floor. With his left hand he grabbed her calf and put it back on the cart, noticing as he did so how the new ring on his finger shined in the daylight.

An all black band. He couldn't have picked it better himself. Rather distracted, he used the thumb of his right hand to stroke the band and feel its smoothness. Bonnie had made this for him. A daylight ring, finally. He had grown tired of skulking around at night all the time, and was just about done waiting for her to do him the favor. He'd guess he was about one night away from just making one for himself. Lucky for him, Bonnie beat him to it. He caught notice of another tickle wiring around in his chest and grunted.

He set to work wheeling the cart to the elevator. He did stop on Bonnie's floor for her things because 1.) the lingerie and 2.) the earful he would get for leaving her iPod and grimoire, and alcohol. Then it was a quiet sunny walk to the Corvette, and a short, grungey drive to the airport, and a cumbersome experience readying the plane for a very long flight. All the while, even as he walked in the sunlight unaffected, he kept glancing back to his ring uncertainly, as if concerned that it would stop working or something. But he wasn't concerned about that. While Bonnie herself was tricky and secretive, sometimes unpredictable, her magic was reliable. He could perhaps doubt her, but not her spells. He was distracted and not at all enthused to have to wonder why.

When the small private plane was fueled and all set, he dumped Bonnie and all her baggage in a window seat and sat in the cockpit. Oddly he needed a minute to clear his mind before taking off. He started to think: what if she was conscious? What would she have to say to him right now? What was she dreaming about in her forced sleep, or did she live alone in a dark space like him when she slept?

Dreams. He had them occasionally. They weren't usually worth talking about.

Did she dream of him when she slept? Or did she dream of sugar and spice, and nicer things than her worst nightmare? He should wake her, probably. Right? He should wake her.

 _No_. He shook his head violently to do away with those thoughts, sat up straight in his seat, cracked his knuckles and moved on.


	11. Chapter 11

Bonnie climbed the steps to her Grams' house, a backpack heavy with homework slung over her right shoulder. She stopped on the porch before opening the door, remembering to zip her jacket all the way up over her very low V neck. She wasn't being sneaky. In truth, it had been a rushed morning and she didn't even realize just how low the shirt was until she was already at school.

Right as she swung the door inward, it was pulled by another person on the other side. The door swiftly left her grasp and she almost stumbled into the foyer. A small scream left her lungs until she looked up and found herself face to face with _him_. And it wasn't until the second her eyes landed on those familiar, pretty irises that she realized something was not right.

" _Damon_?"

He was wearing one of his crinkly smiles but she could see it in his eyes that he was feeling guilty.

 _Damn straight._

And she bared her teeth in rage. But Damon stepped aside, held his arm out toward the interior of the house, beckoning her inside. Who was he to welcome her into her Grams' house, into her own home? And who welcomed him? Who invited him? Why was he here?

Staring him down with complete hatred in her glaring eyes, she walked past him. She guessed her Grams would be sitting at the kitchen table so she headed in that direction, reaching up and pushing all the shear, white curtains out of her way. They hung from the ceiling every square foot, obstructing her path and her vision, billowing lazily in a light draft that circled the house. Maybe it was the overpowering familiarity of the house itself, but she thought nothing of the curtains and even forgot the strangeness of Damon's presence.

As she neared the kitchen, someone walked in front of her so unexpectedly she almost bumped into them. She gaped. She would recognize that person anywhere, even from the back.

"Elena?"

Elena turned and Bonnie felt graced with her big, brown eyes. But they were just as narrowed at Bonnie as Bonnie's eyes had been at Damon. Elena shifted on her feet and turned her face away before she whispered vindictively, "I think she's ready for you." And then she disappeared behind another layer of curtains before Bonnie could reach out. She was left standing there to wonder what she had ever done to piss off Elena so much. And now that she was thinking about it she couldn't remember what Damon had done to piss herself off so much either. All she knew when she saw him was that she wished he would go away.

Resolving to ask Elena about it later, she continued on toward the kitchen. As she pulled the last curtain to the side, she looked in and, as expected, there sat her Grams at the kitchen table. But she couldn't look her in the face. She slipped her backpack off her shoulder and set it gently on the floor against the wall, and seated herself at a chair across the table. She placed her hands flat on the table and moved them to interlace the fingers on each hand before she finally looked up at her Grams.

Bonnie felt her grandmother's eyes burning into her, but she didn't look upset. On the contrary, the old woman smiled mischievously.

"I've been waiting," she said quietly.

"I'm sorry," Bonnie rasped, feeling her throat twist. She wanted to hug her grandmother very badly and she didn't remember why.

"It's so hard to get to you when you drink. It closes your mind."

"This is about my drinking?" Bonnie scoffed, remembering that she had a bit of a drinking problem lately. Her Grams smiled sorrowfully.

"No, child."

 _Child_. Tears threatened to spill out her eyes. She missed being called _child_. It took some of the weight of adulthood, of responsibility, off her shoulders. Since her Grams died…

 _Died…_

"Wait," Bonnie said, her hands coming up, palm out, as if to physically push away her confusion. She closed her eyes tightly trying so hard to remember something, anything, that would help her figure this moment out. The draft coursing through the house blew the white curtains into the kitchen and they seemed longer than they were before, their frayed ends flying up and grazing Bonnie's cheeks as she opened her eyes to look again at her Grams, who looked disappointed now. She turned her gaze away from Bonnie and looked up like danger was coming.

* * *

Bonnie's eyes snapped open.

A dream. And still a hardened bulb of pain she had kept in her chest was flaring. Her subconscious had some nerve to show her Grams. Now all she wanted was vodka.

She tried to sit up and was confronted by a splitting ache in her head. It was equipped with overwhelming urge to crack her jaw and pop her ears. An involuntary whine escaped her lips as she pushed past these feelings to sit up, clutching her skull with her hands. She had a vague memory of Kai doing something to her… The chair. He had hit her with a chair like he thought he was some kind of god damned wrestler.

The seat she had been sleeping on dropped beneath her butt, along with the rest of the floor, and she was airborne for a split second. The movement was suspiciously like airplane turbulence. It forced her to reopen her eyes and take in her surroundings.

"What the fuck?!"

There was a small circular window beside her seat, and outside of it was sunshine and clouds. Not upward in the sky, but right outside the window. Because _she_ was in the sky. She whispered a slew of curses and used the fingers on her head to pinch her eyebrow in the hope that this was just a dream within a dream. Pinching only exacerbated the original pain in her head and she growled another curse.

She didn't like flying. She looked down the long cabin, the sophisticated interior of a private plane. White leather seats, like the one she'd been dozing on, were arranged here and there, some facing the front, some lining the sides like benches against a sleek black paneling that underlined the windows. Kai was nowhere to be seen, hopefully because he was sitting in the cockpit.

She had to wonder what the point was in knocking her out. Even if he was faking having flipped his humanity switch back on, they were agreed on the next move. Bonnie was equally ready to leave New York. So why the chair? Why the sleep spell? And if he was going to use a sleeping spell anyway, it further begged the question, _why the chair_? Apparently he couldn't handle not using physical violence whenever he got the chance.

Bonnie clutched the arm of her seat to steady herself in standing. Her chin dipped close enough to her chest in strain for her to notice that her shirt smelled. It was still the bloody one. She was so grossed out she found herself torn between being glad that Kai hadn't changed her clothes and wishing he had. At least he had taken her heels off. But she was careful not to think of that as an act of humanity. They were probably in his way at some point. While she was thinking about them, she noticed they were sitting on one of the benches, upright and beside each other neatly, next to her suitcase and the other things she'd picked up in New York.

She made her way and sat beside her things to pick out some new clothes before even considering locating her pilot. She rifled through her shopping bags, forgetful of which store had the outfit she wanted to wear specifically for their flight to France, until she found it. A strapless jumper with a creamy pink base and small magenta roses in pattern all over. She particularly liked how short it was. It wasn't like her to choose such showy clothing but living in a prison world was changing that about her. Maybe it was the lack of people to give her attention that she liked; maybe it was the lack of attention she received that drove her to want it unknowingly from the only other person there. Either way, her ass looked great in the thing, especially with the grey suede heeled boots she grabbed to go with it.

With her change of clothes she lumbered in search of a restroom, afraid not to keep clutching her head with one hand. It throbbed so strongly she worried her brain would bust out the side of her skull.

To Bonnie's utter satisfaction, the private plane's bathroom was much larger than those on commercial flights. The toilet, sink and mirror looked somewhat less futuristic and more normal, and they were bigger. She had some room to move around, and enough mirror to effectively check herself out.

She had to wet a piece of toilet paper and wipe old blood off her neck and clavicles. She didn't have time to do it after she came back to life in Times Square; she was too mad to do anything but storm after Kai and exact vengeance. That it didn't go as planned, even under such extreme circumstances, had her thoughts in a whirlwind. So she took her time dressing to break down her little humanity-less Kai problem in a formal, mental outline.

Things she had tried:

1.) Appealing to his troubled past. He stopped her right away with the claim that he was indifferent to it to begin with. She sort of believed him. Perhaps if she had the chance to dig deeper at the relationship between him and his father, or at the abandonment he must have felt when he was sentenced to 1994, she could hit a nerve. But then he had 18 years to pull himself together and formulate a cohesive revenge plot, one which he fulfilled, even after hitting that surprise-feelings hiccup. So she doubted the secret to his trigger lay in the past.

2.) Appealing to his apparently dormant calling as Gemini Coven leader. If it didn't inspire him to flip his switch, she thought it might at least make him rethink an eternity of coven-less prison world life. She supposed it didn't necessarily mean he would take her along with him if he decided to go back to their home dimension, but it might at least shed further light on the possibility of going home at all. She planned to analyze his response but he caught onto her too quickly.

3.) Fatherhood. Rather accidentally the idea of reforming the Gemini Coven from the womb out, via Bonnie, was mentioned. However it disgusted her, she considered the father-mother dynamic alone a possible trigger of a thought, but this too was rescinded by Kai. To Bonnie's relief. Though she couldn't ignore how it piqued her interest that he had apparently had these thoughts before.

4.) Dying. She had died right before his eyes, and even that didn't seem to rouse anything from him. As if it wasn't harsh enough to feed so viciously, he left her body in the street and felt comfortable enough with himself to take a nap. That little bit made her feel so special.

5.) Torture. And Kai showed her what a true player looks like because if he gave one iota of a shit about his own existence, she couldn't tell. What was worse: he knew her life was essentially bound to his, and that if she succeeded in killing him, they were both toast. Permanently. His lack of concern functioned to reinforce the devaluation of her life in his mind. All she had to hold onto was knowing that he designed an entire prison world to share with her, and her alone. But she was losing her grip.

6.) Kindness. Whether or not Kai was yet back to his feeling self, Bonnie had given him the daylight ring she'd made in secret. Her original intention was indeed to use it to save him from a fiery death, expecting that he would've flipped his switch by the time he needed saving. But since the making of that ring held something somewhat sacred between the two of them, she did wonder if forgoing the whole torture process and just handing it to him would stir some sense of gratitude, and if the gratitude for that specific item might kick start a second feeling, and domino effect from there. Perhaps giving him that gift at the last desperate moment ruined the kindness factor for him, and kindness as a play should not yet be discounted.

Things she could still try:

1.) Kindness in another form. Maybe she could pretend not to mind that he just beat her with a chair, spelled her to sleep and dragged her onto an amateur flight without her consent. She could be sweet. She could say things she didn't mean, things he'd probably never heard from anyone before that just might pluck his stiff heart strings. But she wasn't in the mood.

2.) Romance. She wasn't blind to the interest he'd taken in her from day one. She had some interest herself, though it didn't last as long as day one. Despite their bad days and the one monumental fuckover where he stabbed her and left her to suffer for months on her own, it seemed his first mission after his emotional makeover of a merge was to rectify his relationship with her. As hard as she used to try, she still couldn't forget the way he looked at her when he saw her back in present day for the first time. His eyes were hooded with absolute entrancement and he was literally speechless with supposed guilt. He was dumbstruck and spellbound in the worst way. She would be crazy to deny there was no feeling for her in him that could be dug up. If it was still buried there and hadn't been completely hacked out when she left him 1903, kissing him the way she did in New York wasn't enough.

Since Kai was in such a brutal honesty kind of state, maybe she could ask him more questions about why she of all people was the one to delay his return to Portland. If he had just left it alone and left her alone like she wanted, he would be in Portland running a coven and she would probably be back in school, sleeping in the dorm room with her best friends every night. But no. He just _had_ to see something through with Bonnie, and she just _had_ to have her revenge. It didn't escape her, the irony of how his newfound goodness and her newfound darkness collaborated in the design of their downfall.

Bonnie hadn't thought to wonder until now, after waking from a very odd dream involving her Grams, if she was destined to free Kai from 1994. During the collapse of the other side, her Grams had told her to stay strong. She knew where Bonnie was headed, and that her suffering there would not last. Their friends couldn't rescue her and Damon without knowing where they were, so clearly her Grams knew that the way out was up to her. But if it was as simple as duping Kai, stealing the ascendant and leaving without him, what was she staying strong for? Having to hold hands with Damon?

The 1994 prison world wasn't the only time loop out there. It wasn't the only alternative to the Oblivion ravaging The Other Side.

It terrified her to be having this revelation, but…what if saving her own life wasn't the only reason she ended up in 1994? What if another force out there, perhaps Grams, perhaps not, wanted Kai rehabilitated? But after what he'd done already, what was worth saving?

 _A few things_ , she thought. Before he had those post-merge feelings he did have some charm, but it could be argued that it was only ever for his own gain. But whose charm isn't? Post-merge, it was easier to see other qualities that may have previously existed in quieter quantities. He was willful, selfish, obnoxious and impulsive, but he was also persistent, diligent, a challenging person to be around in that Bonnie was often forced to question herself. He made her reconsider her values and it spurred self-evolution, something that she needed in order to grow into a complete woman. And it was impossible to test yet, but knowing what she did of his personality she could tell he was probably loyal.

The foundations for basic values were still there.

Bonnie had no way of knowing exactly what kinds of spirit conversations took place for Grams to be able to redirect Bonnie's path from Oblivion to Kai's dimension. She imagined Sheila must've known about 1903 and Bonnie was sent to 1994 because the odds of surviving Kai were greater than those of surviving a ripper and her pack of bloodthirsty Heretics. More than likely _stay strong_ meant _be patient because you are about to endure the whimsical wrath of Kai Parker until you learn how to best him_. Her Grams probably did not intend for him to be unleashed, or for her granddaughter to get any kind of cozy with him. Bonnie wondered what her Grams would think if she could still spirit around. She hated knowing that she wasn't watching over her any longer, but maybe it was for the best if she didn't know about Bonnie's growing attachment to an ally coven's fuckup.

 _Fuckup._ She remembered apologizing to him at the wedding barn, apologizing on behalf of his family. Telling him that he _was_ good enough. Kissing him for the first time, in the car when they were wet, making it humid. For an extra bit of strength, she wished she could feel again how she felt then, just for a second. The risk in it, the relinquishment of borders, the fear, and more than anything, the fleeting and unexpected sense of affection for this so massively hated _fuckup_ of a person. Is that what it is to love someone?

…Bonnie looked herself up and down in the mirror. Despite not having showered in an uncertain amount of time, her hair was the kind of greasy that gave it a little bit of volume and she looked okay.

She exited the bathroom and, after rooting around the cabinets for complimentary booze, booted tipsily to the other end of the plane where she opened the door to the cockpit and found Kai sitting at the helm. He had his iPod set up with a portable speaker on the floor playing music that didn't sound like it was good for concentration.

"Why?" she demanded to know as she sat in the co-pilot's seat.

Kai, his brow furrowed in concentration, offered her only a peripheral glance.

"I'm sorry? You'll have to be more specific. Why what?"

Bonnie bit the inside of her cheek in restraint, trying not to take too much of a tone with the man flying the plane. "Why did you have to knock me out so brutally?"

He shrugged, "Didn't feel like faking it anymore."

Bonnie leaned back into the seat, stretched her legs and aimed to put her feet up on the dash. Kai's right arm waved frantically at her as he scolded, " _Watch the 'ometers_!" and she shifted her legs diagonally so her feet would land somewhere without important-looking stuff to bump. Casually, she said, "I hate you," and proceeded to ignore the breathtaking view before her, clouds coming at them out of the blue, to instead examine her nail beds.

"Hey. At least this time you woke up in a fancy private plane, not in the trunk of a car like a dead prostitute."

"Gee, thanks."

"What method of knocking you out would you prefer? You know, in the future."

Bonnie glanced over at Kai with a disgusted look. His hands were glued to controls and his eyes to the vast skyscape ahead, but his smirk was evident enough in his profile. She shook her head and was determined not to answer such a question, then found herself answering it anyway. If she was being honest with herself, it may not be the last time Kai tried to render her unconscious. Though he was joking, this really was her opportunity to voice a preference.

"Gently," she said, and returned focus to her nails.

" _Oh, shit_ ," Kai whispered, following it up with a string of muttered profanities. Bonnie looked up again and his face had contorted into the kind of concerned expression she definitely did not want to see when they were twenty thousand feet in the air.

"What?" Bonnie asked, trying to keep herself under control while hoping to hell that nothing was wrong. She put her feet coolly back on the floor and set her palms on her knees, waiting for him to tell her what mediocre, not life-threatening thing he was cursing about. Kai, paler than she'd ever seen, looked directly at her for the first time since she entered the cockpit.

"Pull down your oxygen mask," he ordered breathily.

" _What?_!"

" _Do_ it, _NOW_ , Bonnie!" he yelled, and without a second to waste she looked up to the roof of the cockpit for the small compartment that held her oxygen mask, but there were only more buttons.

"Where is it?" she squealed, starting to shake and hyperventilate. Kai laughed.

"Gullible," he chuckled to himself, resuming the even-flow demeanor he'd had when she joined him. The plane was fine.

Bonnie's hands fled to her chest to calm her wild heart, too shocked to slap Kai in the face for being so cruel. It seemed she needed a little more time away from him and got up. As she made her way out, she felt something tug the bottom hem of her jumper, and stopped. Kai had reached out and was pinching her clothes, his eyes turned up at her.

"Where are you going?"

"The fuck away from you."

"But I need your help."

"You look like you're handling it."

"The truth is I…need to renew my membership."

"What?"

"With the mile-high club."

"Oh fuck you."

"Uh, yeah Bon, that's the idea."

Bonnie left the cockpit in a huff to sit alone by her suitcase. She tried to avoid looking out the window, but did sometimes peek. Though water was probably the safest part to fly over, it was the part she most dreaded and she longed to know, masochistically, when it was happening. But each time she looked out the window, they were high over land or there was too much sky between the plane and the earth to tell. So she spent the remainder of the flight distracting herself.

* * *

Landing was a horrifying experience. But with eyes clamped shut and folding the rest of her body into a tight fetal position, expectant of death, she got through it. Eventually the plane hit the ground running and slowed to a stop, and when she looked out the window, she could see that Kai had even managed to land them on a runway at an airport. He must've flown quite a bit more than he let on.

After a moment he appeared in the cabin with a rather cocky gait and smile. They collected their things and stepped off the plane in search of an adequate car. Bonnie breathed the fresh air and looked all around, wanting to absorb everything she could of France. Kai led her through the airport, wanting to find a rental car kiosk so that there would be a key in their possession instead of having to hot-wire something. They didn't need to cover much ground before suspicion arose.

"Kai," she said, glaring at all their surroundings in the airport, "Why isn't anything in French?"

His response was a sly grin and he kept walking. A sign ahead caught her eye. It said:

 ** _Welcome to Portland!_**


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Dear readers, you are loved. Everyone who leaves reviews, you are amazing and thank you for your kind, constructive thoughts. I like to think I speak for all of us when I say that Bonnie deserves the world. As a character I just love her so much, and I love Kai's character, and I want everyone to know that I have taken them to these dark places for a reason but I would never, ever leave them there. You can't see it but I am winking at you. ;)**

* * *

On the outside the Parker house remained, hauntingly, the same.

Kai pulled their "brand spanking new" Miata into the gravelly driveway of the Parker home and Bonnie immediately began feeling sick to her stomach. She'd only awakened from her sleeping spell three hours prior, and on top of the odd fatigue associated with it she was jet lagged from flying all through the night and previous afternoon. She'd been unconscious for nearly twenty four hours and it had taken Kai that long, she learned, to get them from one coast to the other. Tripling the ailments she felt was the physical reaction she was having to the sight of those grey shutters, the wrap-around porch, the tree stump in the front yard where they were playing nice, he was telling her about his little realization, he was showing her the knife, and then he…

"Yup!" Kai's barking voice interrupted Bonnie's flashback. "Exactly the same as it always fucking was, because you know what? Joshua Parker gives zero fucks about what happened to his spawn here."

Bonnie sucked in air carefully trying to ward off her nausea, but couldn't resist responding.

"Careful there," she rasped. "Sounds like you're about to get emotional."

He gasped falsely. "No more silent treatment? Good, because you should know by now I don't learn my lessons." He got out and his door slammed shut. Bonnie watched him walk up the driveway.

 _I've watched you do the spell twice now._

She didn't want to step out of the car.

 _I don't think I need a Bennett witch to do the spell._

She didn't want to be here.

 _I think all I actually need…is Bennett blood._

" _God_ ," Bonnie breathed, realizing she was starting to shake and she could hear her heart in her ears, and the chattering of her teeth droning in her skull. She felt positively numb with fear. And she hated that. Because she was supposed to be stronger now. She was _the new_ Bonnie, strengthened by the things that happened to her, not weakened by them.

They weren't in France and she could reconcile with that, anywhere but here. Much time had passed since the trauma she experienced in the front yard she was staring at, but now that she was facing it again every nerve in her body wriggled to turn right around and leave.

Kai stopped at the front steps and had his hands on his hips while he stared at the house. Maybe it was a good sign that he felt the need to take a moment.

 _I've watched you do the spell twice now._

Bonnie opened her door and got out of the car to hesitantly make her way toward him. She held her hand over her belly, unable to breathe the nausea away, and her boots crunching on the gravel sounded so loud, so near to her ears, growing tinnier.

 _I don't think I need a Bennett witch to do the spell._

She looked down to the ground and her view of stumbling boots on the rocks shifted left to right, left to right, again and again, blurring worse with each step.

 _I think all I actually_ _need_ — "Stop it," she snapped at her own thoughts. … _is Bennett blood_.

She had to stop and collect herself, collect her breaths, collect Kai's words as they shattered out of her memory to litter her physical plane with tiny demons. _I've watched you do the spell twice now._

"Really?" She heard Kai's sardonic voice and opened her eyes to see him mocking her. There was a twitch of satisfaction on his face and it was all she needed to take one deep breath, arc her brow and punish him with an aneurysm. It happened on accident, really. His hand flew up to his head and he grinned his way through a pained groan until it was over. She hadn't done a thing.

Seeing him in pain gave her the strength to walk past him.

Kai had to siphon the invitation barrier to get through the front door. He wasn't part vampire the last time he was home. Bonnie followed him in and saw that at least the inside of the house had changed quite a bit. For one, the walls were no longer striped with the blood of Kai's siblings. Like Bonnie, Kai hadn't seen it since 1994 either. She followed him loosely in a slow exploration of the house, because she wasn't interested in the grand tour the first time she was there. She listened to Kai note out loud what else had changed. Apparently the wallpaper altogether was new. The furniture had a new theme, and Kai said that was probably because he got blood on the old stuff. On the mantle, a Faberge egg Kai claimed was actually a coven artifact had a new chip in it. " _Olivia_ ," he scolded presumptuously.

All pictures of any Parker kids were missing from the walls, except Luke and Olivia. It was like Kai, Jo and the others never existed. Bonnie didn't know exactly what she was sensing from him as they walked through the house and he was noticing this. He didn't seem shocked by any means, and he didn't necessarily seem hurt, but there was something. Disappointment, maybe. Or a complicated extension of abandonment. Dismay at having been forgotten. Because Kai, of anyone, probably preferred to be remembered, fondly or not.

The bedrooms upstairs had been redone to erase the memories of those lost. Only one out of five was functional, and two of them, Kai said, had been transformed into guest rooms. The functional room, the master bedroom, was obviously the patriarch's. Neutral colors muted personality and the slightest signs of use suggested the lack of both time spent there and a matriarch. Bonnie never asked Kai what happened to his mom. A small bedroom on the south end of the house was an untouched shrine to a daughter away at college, Olivia, just like the bedroom next to it for a son, Luke.

"Which one was yours?" Bonnie asked, and Kai smiled. He led her back downstairs and to a closet-like door, behind which was a narrow staircase to a basement. Since this was new territory to her mind, Bonnie was able to remind herself that she was creating new memories, not reliving a bad one. She followed Kai down the stairs and into an unfinished basement with a living area and two more bedrooms. Kai, however, walked past these and through a hall that was half finished, half not. The other side was exposed wood and yellow fluff, the utterly naked foundation of the parker house. The hall ended in the back of the south end of the house. Kai stopped in front of a large stretch of the finished wall and seemed puzzled.

"I'll be damned," he said.

"What?" Bonnie asked, growing nervous. She heard her voice absorbed by the unfinished portion of the basement and felt suddenly terrified of the dark space idling behind the planks. It had to be all dirt, dust, spiders and ghosts in there. She felt like she was in a haunted house attraction in October and was tempted to hold onto Kai's arm for support. Disgusted with herself, she pushed the thought away.

Kai flattened his hands on the wall, closed his eyes and breathed through his nose.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"See anything yet?" he asked.

"Actually…" Bonnie cocked her head at the wall, because now, "I do."

A white door had appeared right under Kai's hands. He opened his eyes, saw the door and then looked down to his side at Bonnie with a proud little twist to his lips.

"Wasn't enough to hide my pictures. Bastard had to cloak my room too."

Rather sentimentally Kai gripped the door knob and hesitantly turned it. The door gave way to what Bonnie thought was the nineties-est teenager-est bedroom she had ever seen in her life. Kai sighed in relief and sauntered into his old room with his arms affectionately out, and Bonnie leaned against the door frame looking in.

"Oh Bonster," he said as he turned, "it's your lucky day. This is the untouched '94 Kai Parker you're looking at." He plopped down on the corner of his old bed. "I spent a lot of time here in my prison world, I changed it every few months or so, but I haven't been in _here_ since actual 1994. Crazy, right?" he grinned and bounced on the edge of his bed as he talked. Bonnie simpered.

His walls were painted dark blue, underneath all the posters. He had Nirvana, he had The Cure, he had a dorky tapestry hanging behind a beat up accent table that held a coffee mug full of incense and a burner. He had a computer desk with a big, boxy Dell on top. The keyboard drawer was still open and the wooden chair still pulled out like he sat in it that morning. Candles burnt halfway down were set up on almost every surface, wax spilled around the base and dried into messy pools. Dirty laundry littered most of the floor, which Bonnie could see was unfinished cement covered less by rugs than plaid and black shirts. The bed on which he sat, a twin mattress and box spring without a frame, was tucked in the corner with ruffled black jersey sheets and a plaid comforter, looking like he just slept in it. There was a dirty shirt by his boot and Bonnie watched him pick it up, turn it right-side out, smile, shrug out of the shirt he was wearing and pull the dirty one over his head. Pearl Jam. Tacked to the ceiling above his bed was a Baywatch poster and Bonnie had to stifle a giggle with her hands.

Kai looked Bonnie up and down. "Laugh all you want but '94 Kai is still in me, and there's a girl in his room."

"Ooh. Meaning?"

Kai pursed his lips playfully, "I'm just saying…watch yourself."

"Or what? Was '94 Kai a rapist too?" Bonnie jeered irritably.

He blanched, and then let out a short laugh with a noticeable touch of embarrassment.

"No," he said. "No, I was never _that_ kind of monster. I was just…" he trailed off and let his eyes wander thoughtfully over her lips, she noticed, before he decided on the word, "persuasive." And she felt a heated throb travel from her heart to her thighs while the hairs rose all over her skin. She shifted her weight to the other foot uncomfortably and bit her tongue, waiting for Kai's glazy stare to leave her eyes, but each time she looked away and back again, he was still looking at her.

"Oh-kay," she said, her voice breaking, "Anyway. We're in Portland and not Paris because…?"

Kai's hard stare left her and he sighed. "There's something here I need to find. But I won't bore you with the details, so, keep yourself busy. There's lots of land and neat-o witchywoo spots to explore, the good bathroom's on the main level by the kitchen as I'm sure you remember, um…food. I'm starving."

Bonnie's heart rate spiked and she took an instinctive step backward without any thought.

"If you're hungry and if there's stuff to make, like, macaroni or something, could you do that? Could you…make me…some food?" he asked, eyeing her down again in the oddest way. Like he cared what her answer would be, and intended to respect it.

She bit her lip and nodded.

"Awesome. Thank you."

 _Thank you_?

 _I've watched you do the spell twice now._

Bonnie shook her head, shivered and left Kai to do whatever it was he needed to do.

* * *

The kitchen, like the rest of the house, was modern, unlike Kai's hidden basement bedroom. Without any children or teenagers in the house, it seemed Joshua Parker was not one who enjoyed macaroni and cheese. He did, however, have Rice-A-Roni pastas. Bonnie easily located the pot and utensils she needed to start on some olive oil and herb linguine, and it wasn't long before Kai emerged from the basement with a large box in his arms. Bonnie watched him take it to the living room and spill its contents all over the floor. It appeared to have been organized neatly in the box, but Kai wasn't the type to conduct a search as gracefully.

She was waiting for water to boil, so she went to stand behind him and look over all that he'd dumped out for some kind of clue as to what he might be searching for. She was only mildly curious. Kai walked away from the mess, nodding bizarrely cordially at Bonnie as he passed by her on his way to a stereo in a glass cabinet against the wall. He had a stack of CD's in his hand.

"Being back here's got me in the mood for some old favorites," he announced, before the grunge started up and he banged his head to the beat and played air guitar.

Bonnie put a hand on her hip and realized she was staring at a pile of Parker grimoires. Or Gemini grimoires. Some had unfamiliar last names on them and it occurred to her that maybe not every member of the Gemini coven shared the Parker name, but their leader of course was bound to be in possession of ancestor grimoires.

"Whoa," she said and Kai calmed down to see what she was ogling at.

"Run along," he said, waving her back toward the kitchen.

"Consider me intrigued. Details. Bore me."

He picked up the grimoire closest to him and opened it as he leaned against the arm of the couch.

"Trust me, Bonnie, you don't wanna know," he muttered to the open spell book.

"Now I really do."

He looked up to give her a calmly admonishing look, and the hard line of his stubbly jaw made it all the more serious. A timer she never set on the oven began to beep. "Scram," he said. She scowled at him and did as she was told, confident that she would find out one way or another. In the meantime she was too hungry to make a cause out of it.

When she was almost ready to dish up the finished meal, Kai sensed it. He appeared in the kitchen just in time to take plates from her hand as she pulled them out of the cabinet. He stood by and let Bonnie dish up the pasta, letting her take the first plate. She felt his eyes on her as she hesitantly took her seat at the opposite end of the table from where she sat the last time they ate there together. Kai took the adjacent chair, saying as he set down drinks for the two of them and sat down, "Sitting in a different spot to convince yourself it's not like the last time?"

 _I've watched you do the spell twice now._

"No," she insisted with her mouth full. But inside she learned, only after he said it, that it was true.

"Ironic, though, don't you think?"

"How?"

His mouth too full of linguine to talk, he shrugged. But she waited.

"It's the anniversary, of sorts," he said between swallowing his food and taking a healthy gulp of water.

"What?" Bonnie's fork full of food dangled in her hand.

"Yeah," Kai said as he shoveled another mouthful. "I'm not gonna lie, though, I planned it that way."

"It's Thanksgiving?"

He nodded.

"How do you know?"

He rolled his eyes and kept chewing. It never ceased to amaze her how meticulously he seemed to keep track of time. Maybe after 18 years in his own world he had some kind of biological clock.

"Why didn't you tell me? You just let me make crap pasta?"

"Don't care anymore."

"You should've helped!" She threw her napkin at him. "I thought Thanksgiving was your favorite holiday."

"It was," he said, picking up her napkin and putting it neatly back beside her plate. "Now every day is my favorite. And least favorite."

"So that means we've only been here for like…five months?"

He shook his head and took another gulp of water before holding up one finger as he swallowed.

"Five months…and a year," she interpreted dismally. "What about the first Thanksgiving? Why didn't we do anything?"

"We weren't together. I came back to you after a year. I figured you needed the time."

"Wow, that's depressing," she mused. "I've spent the last two Christmases in prison worlds. _And_ birthdays. Alone. Coming up on three."

Kai cracked his neck and shifted in his chair. "Well you won't be alone this time. …Ok, seriously? Stop shaking."

Bonnie frowned at Kai confusedly.

"You're making the table shake, how can you not notice?"

She looked down at her hands and dropped her fork. He wasn't making it up. She was vibrating. _I think all I actually need_ … She clenched her hands into small fists and hid them in her lap. … _Bennett blood._ Kai was still staring, still holding his fork and not taking that bite.

"Did I traumatize you that bad?" he asked with a barely touching hint of concern. It was knowing that he probably didn't genuinely care that kept her from feeling anything he said to her.

"I'm fine. It's just cold in here."

He put his fork down and wiped his mouth conclusively on a napkin before standing up. Bonnie watched him walk over to a specific drawer, pull it open and survey the contents for a moment before pulling out a long, strikingly similar knife.

"No," was the first thing to come out of her mouth, and it came instantly as she shot to her feet and her chair whined across the hardwood. She debated whether to make assumptions and run, or wait and see what the calculating expression on his face was all about. He held the knife thoughtfully, perhaps making mental comparisons he didn't feel like sharing, and then flicked his eyes up at her.

"We'll come back to this," he said of the meal.

"No," she reiterated. But he was already taking her hand and leading her to the front door. Something was happening to her body and it wouldn't resist. _I've watched you do the spell twice now_. He led, she listened, he frowned and she kept her mouth shut as she trembled and limply let him guide her to…to what? A cruel reenactment? Some kind of lesson? _I don't think I need a Bennett witch to do the spell_. They were outside in the late afternoon shade as the sun crossed over the western skyline. Lunchtime, Thanksgiving again, pasta again, carefree Kai again, walking with him to the tree again… _I think all I actually need…is Bennett blood_. Her boots tracked tentative steps across the grass and they were there, standing at the stump. Kai set the clean knife on the rings of the dead tree.

"You were standing there," he said, taking her shoulders and placing her in the right spot. She remembered because it was all flashing back to her every other breath she took. She could see her blood on the grass, his smooth face as it used to be, the blue jacket he wore, the cargo pants, black socks, smug look. The same smug look was there, it was just a few months of age on his face, a few months of emotion lingering in the way he used his eyes, and a Pearl Jam shirt that had changed.

He stepped back from her and stood against the tree, laying his eyes on her while he laid his hand on the knife. "I was here."

 _I've watched you do the spell twice now._

"What did I say to you? I don't remember."

 _I don't think I need a Bennett witch to do the spell_.

She couldn't adequately decipher him. He probably wasn't planning to stab her again, but regardless of his plans she wasn't about to let that happen. _God,_ what if he was rifling through grimoires for prison world spells because there really was a way out and he was about to do the same thing all over again?

Skeptically and darkly, she reminded him, "All you needed was Bennett blood."

He sighed in appreciation, altered his uncharted demeanor to be the same repulsive and sly attitude he had that first Thanksgiving. He changed completely, to '94 Kai in four seconds and picked up the knife. Bonnie kinked her knuckles, preparing to protect herself by any means necessary. How dare he bring her here, back to this place, back to this moment.

"All I need…" Kai recited as he approached her, knife out. She stood rooted to the ground with threat in her eyes; he was pushing it; she was going to snap. "…Is Bennett blood," he finished. He had said them. Those words again. Then, reassuringly, he added, "In my mouth. Later. After you realize that I'm not doing that to you again, and calm down."

He stood an inch away and pressed the knife, flat, against her belly until she remembered how to move and put her hand on the knife as well. He was handing it to her in the most parallel way he could. As he let go his hand purposely touched hers, glided against her skin softly until the knife was hers. But it wasn't enough. She needed something more cathartic.

Bonnie cradled the knife to her, feeling out the grooves in the handle, fitting her fingers where they belonged. She took a step between his shoes and pressed her forehead into his chest, feeling his heart pound. He reacted properly and put his arms around her, perhaps thinking she needed comfort and assimilating. And she couldn't wait a second longer. She wouldn't. She tightened her grip on the knife and nudged its point against the cloth of Kai's shirt, pressing a bit harder to feel the taught surface of his diaphragm protest the sharp tip.

"Mmm," he groaned into her hair, "That feels suspiciously like you don't think we're even yet."

"Never," she granted. She nuzzled his sternum, rubbed her thumb along the knife handle and plunged it into Kai's gut. She heard his breath hitch, felt his fingers curl into her back for a tight second and then release. He hobbled back from her and looked down at himself, the knife sticking out of his abdomen and unmoving because of the depth which she had forced it. His hands found the handle and he looked up to meet her eyes as he panted.

"Feel better?' he wheezed. Nothing in her features denoted pleasure. Because she didn't feel better. She just felt sick. Her legs turned around and carried her back inside, leaving Kai to wrench the knife out on his own.

A minute later he rejoined her at the dinner table with a hole in his shirt but his wound was already healed, and she resented that. But at least he knew how she was feeling.

They were due for a quiet, awkward meal. And some time did pass in silence, but she had too many questions for him. She finished chewing her last bite, drank some water she had sneakily added vodka to while he was still outside, and asked pensively, "Since you merged with Luke and magically got feelings do you ever wonder if the same thing would have happened if your family let you merge with Jo back in the day, and all of their worrying was all for nothing?"

"What?" There was no anger in his tone. Either he didn't care about what she'd just done to him or he knew he deserved it.

She repeated, "If you had merged with Jo when you were supposed to, do you think you would have gotten her empathy too?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly, in a way that made Bonnie think he hadn't thought of that yet. There wasn't a point in answering the question. Nothing could be done about it anymore.

"Why won't you tell me what you're looking for?"

"What is this, twenty questions?"

"I want to know."

"You really don't."

"I deserve to know."

"You're not ready."

"That's a load of crap and you know it."

"I'll tell you. I will. I just haven't figured out how. And anyway, I haven't found what I'm looking for either so I don't even know if it exists yet."

"If you tell me, maybe I can help you."

"You wouldn't help me if I told you."

"Then why look in the first place? Is it something I won't like?"

"No. Well, maybe."

"Ugh, Kai. You…" she trailed off as she debated internally how to finish that sentence. _You piss me off. You make me nervous. You terrify me. You will be missed after I kill you. You…everything._

"I what?"

"You are really hard to live with."

"Never heard that before," he said rolling his eyes and chewing on his last bite.

"I can't relax around you, I don't know what you're thinking because you don't tell me and when you do, you lie. Every time I wake up there's a new problem for me."

"It's ok, Bonnie."

"It's not, Kai."

He collected his dishes, and hers, and started carrying them to the sink. Bonnie watched him set everything down and drum his fingers on the countertop in thought.

"Look, Bon," he started, appearing to bite the inside of his cheek. He seemed earnest; that he believed what he was saying and wanted her to believe it as well. "What I'm looking for…it's not a bad thing. Try not to stress yourself out." After that, he left the kitchen to resume his search.

When she was ready, Bonnie braved the front yard again to get her suitcase out of the car, wishing to pass the rest of the day listening to her iPod in lieu of his grunge. She occupied herself, keeping a comfortable distance from the living room where, in the short silences between songs, she could hear him pacing, chucking grimoires back into the box and muttering to himself. She snooped through Joshua Parker's room. She took a much needed shower in the master bathroom. She lay on a bed in her chosen guest room and held her feet up in the air, wiggling her toes one by one, out of boredom. Later, when she was ready to be around him again, she snuck into the living room and busied herself with family photo albums on the couch so Kai would let her stay. Perhaps because she wasn't watching him and clearly wasn't listening, he did.

Kai's childhood pictures hadn't been removed from the albums. She flipped past early photos of his dad and a woman who must've been his mom, before their eight children, until the baby pictures started. _Malachai and Josette_ , the marker read in swirly writing with a little heart drawn at the end. And as they aged, he was easy to pick out. His hair didn't grow and curl out like Jo's, and he had the same wide smile, though perceptibly more innocent. Until the middle school years, you couldn't see it coming. The terror. Then the pictures of new babies, siblings, cropped up.

* * *

"Did you find what you're looking for?"

It was late at night. Bonnie was getting ready for bed and Kai had found her upstairs to help her get settled. She was, after all, a guest in his house.

To her apprehension, he smirked cherubically and teetered on a nod. "Maybe," he said, holding up the bed comforter for her to climb in. "You know what that means. After you get some real sleep, we're going back to the airport."

"Right." After the last few days, she refused to let herself trust that.

"Honestly. Paris. Tomorrow. I promise."

"I can tuck myself in," she chided. He shrugged and dropped the blanket. She hadn't forgotten that he was expecting to feed, and so approached him holding out her open wrist, hoping he would get the message: that she was done with intimate feedings. He accepted the arm and held it for a moment to watch the lively veins in her wrist budge the thin skin so slightly each time her heart beat. She watched him admiring her skin, catching the tiniest vein of thirst swell up underneath one eye and almost immediately submerge again. Kai ran his fingertips lightly over her wrist and handed her arm back to her.

"I'm not so thirsty right now, actually," he said.

He turned and walked to the doorway where he stopped to see her climb into bed. He moved his arm to flip the light switch for her but darkness, magically, draped the room before he could. She smirked at him and waited until he left to breathe.

As she settled back into bed she wondered why he was being so polite all of a sudden. He refused a feeding. It wasn't like him; not this version anyway. She dared to hope she was finally getting to him.

As sleep threatened, her dream from that morning came to mind. _Grams_. She could handle seeing Damon in a dream, and the feelings of anger and betrayal that followed. And seeing Elena was somewhat of a nice thing, despite the mourning that followed _that_. But seeing Grams… It should feel nicer than it did. But Grams wasn't running rampant in Mystic Falls, and she wasn't under a sleeping spell until further notice. _Or dead_ , Bonnie reminded herself. She still didn't know if her dying in the prison world had caused sleeping Elena to die in the real world. Either way, Elena was no longer supernatural, and was not doomed to Oblivion. Grams, on the other hand, was gone. Utterly gone. And Bonnie couldn't stand to be teased in her own mind.

There was still a bottle of expensive vodka sitting in the kitchen. Joshua Parker's vodka, the same she had poured into her water earlier. Sleep, without dreams, would be so much easier to come by if there was more alcohol running through her circulatory system. So she left her bed and tip-toed to the kitchen.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Happy May 10th everyone! I had hoped to publish this chapter earlier today as a sort of celebratory thing... Alas, I write sloooow. Anyway, Doc Manager is being weird and not letting certain symbols remain in the text? Like the little arrows we use in math and in text messages to make hearts, you know? So for full effect, if you can, head over to my Tumblr page to read this chapter. (Link in bio) If you choose to stay here... the arrows...pretend you can see them. XOXO**

* * *

Always with the feelings.

Kai stood in a hot shower, losing himself in the forest of his mind. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't like this yesterday. It wasn't right.

Caring, and guilt, and concern, and anxiety, and the general militia of humanity were not supposed to peek out from behind the corner like this. He wasn't for it, wasn't into it, wouldn't allow it. He wanted to strike back against these threats of empathy with severe apathy, and yet he almost couldn't bear the thought of doing his worst.

 _You've officially done your worst, so congrats._

She had no idea how bad things could still get. What lurked in his mind. She thought the worst was done. How cute.

But the way she trembled. Like a rabbit. Her eyes big and set on him, her posture stiff yet alert and prepared to fight, or flee. It was unlike the first time they stood at that stump. The first time she was full of doubt, annoyance, ignorance, arrogance. It had irritated him, when over the course of Thanksgiving spaghetti he was trying to find something redeemable in her for having killed him with a pickaxe, for constantly insulting him. And he couldn't. So he did what he did. This Thanksgiving, all he could think about as he tried to recreate that moment was how his own actions had haunted him right after the merge. He was trying to do something good in showing her he no longer meant her harm, but he knew he was still bluffing, and he felt that, and he remembered sobbing like a jackass over the first time, and he didn't want to do anything else he would regret. He didn't want those ugly, soggy, red eyes back, ever.

 _Conflicting_. He punched the shower wall and felt the tile crack against his knuckles. Was it normal to experience these twinges, these little reminders, these tremors of what lay beneath the mystical apathy layer that was the down-flipped switch of his humanity? He wished, harrowingly, another vampire were present so he could ask them. And he made a mental note to bring it up _if_ the opportunity ever presented itself. _If._ Hopefully the spell he found earlier that day would immaterialize that _if_ , and Bonnie's relentless cause to escape their lovely, cozily private, intimately empty world.

As he watched the cuts on his knuckles heal and the blood wash away down the drain, he realized he had been standing in the shower for a probable thirty minutes. He turned the water off, grabbed a towel from the rack and stepped out to dry himself. It was the middle of the night but he wasn't tired. He normally wasn't. If he ever felt fatigued in any way it was after a tiff with Bonnie or while the sun was up. Now, at night, when the world was dark, he felt supernaturally awake. And _hungry_. Maddeningly hungry. Though he wouldn't try for a feeding now. He had already taken the first step in his plan and that was reminding Bonnie how tame he could be with his humanity off, because he wasn't quite finished assessing his sense of self. No, that part of him would have to stay the same for a while longer, but other things were changing. Things he could acknowledge, however indifferently, and still understand the necessity in pursuing. If he crept back into the guest room where she slept, announcing he changed his mind and he'd be having that sweet Bennett blood now, it would ruin everything.

The faintest noise caught his ear. The single clink of a glass against another. And the subtle creak of a floorboard on…he cocked his head…the first floor. Clearly if he crept back into her guest room now, he would find it empty.

* * *

The kitchen was dark and Bonnie was able to navigate well enough to leave it that way. The fewer signs that she was up and about in the house, the better. She didn't know where Kai had disappeared to after seeing her to bed, but she assumed the basement. Until she turned to leave the kitchen with her full glass of vodka and ran smack into something fleshy.

"Jesus!" she exclaimed after a sharp gasp, barely angling her glass in time to keep all the ice and vodka from sloshing out. She fixed her focus to see that the thing she ran into was a half-naked, dripping wet Kai. In hyperspeed she blinked and turned her gaze down to the floor. He had a towel wrapped around his bottom half, but just a flash in the dark of water dripping down his bare chest, down his abs… It was ridiculous how attractive he was becoming. Instead of letting herself acknowledge it, she chose to watch the runoff pool at his feet.

"What are you doing up?" he asked skeptically.

She tilted her face higher up than usual so as to look him in the eye without catching any peripheral distractions to tear her eyes away. "I was thirsty," she said, dangling her glass for him to see.

"No kidding," he said brushing too closely past her as he made his way into the kitchen. "I could smell the liquor on your breath all the way upstairs."

He opened a cabinet to get a glass and started pouring himself his own serving of vodka. He stopped short, visibly realizing with some disappointment that not much was left in the bottle. And Bonnie decided to say more, both wanting to keep it to herself and needing to share with someone.

"I had a dream about my Grams this morning," she started, retracing her steps slowly back toward the island so she could be closer to him. "You know, when I was still unconscious because you hit me with a chair and put me under a spell…"

"So you're polishing off a 750 ml of vodka?" he admonished, tipping his glass to his mouth and draining the contents in one mouthful.

"I just want something strong enough to knock me out without any dreams getting in the way of a peaceful rest."

He set his glass loudly down, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and gave her one of his smoldering leers. "I can help with that."

She smiled contemptuously and hummed her rejection. It wasn't clear whether he was offering her another chair-smack or rough sex. Nor was it clear which she would have preferred at the moment.

"What kind of dream?" Kai asked suddenly, his eyes piercing her with alarming and yet nonchalant interest.

"Just…a dream."

"Bonnie, we're witches. A dream is never just a dream."

"Hm."

"Show me."

"Honestly," Bonnie half laughed, clutching her glass to her chest and turning to leave him. But he met her on the other side of the island, blocking her path with the same look of cool curiosity on his face.

"Show me," he insisted pleasantly and shrugged, "I'm curious to see what kind of dream has driven you to drink yourself to sleep."

"I've been drinking myself to sleep for a while, Captain Perceptive."

"Bonnie," he laughed, showing his teeth, taking a good hit like a good sport. And she really did want to show him. She really did want to talk to someone about it, even if the thought of delving any further was beginning to wring her insides. The very real possibility of her breaking down and crying if she had to walk through that dream again was almost enough to push her back upstairs, despite Kai's insistence. But she couldn't be alone with it. She just couldn't. When he said, _We're witches_ , she remembered they shared that bond, however deep it was buried. Clairvoyant dreams were the first sign of her nature coming to form, her first hint that being a witch wasn't as unrealistic as previously thought. By the way he spoke to her now, she knew, and she wondered what kinds of clairvoyant dreams Kai had experienced in his life.

She put her vodka on the corner of the island, wiped the condensation from her hands onto her shorts and placed them each on either side of Kai's neck. She felt goosebumps rise on his skin against her cold fingertips and in reaction her own skin broke out in goosebumps. Something about making him shiver incited the same physical response in her. He mirrored her and placed his hands on her neck. They were just as cold as hers, but grew warmer as his temperature vamp-adapted to her warm neck. She felt his pulse quicken as her nervous eyes met his, darkening. He was apprehensive. Why? And how? She urged herself to stop overthinking things, flattened her palms, breathed out, closed her eyes.

In a moment, she was climbing up to the steps to her Grams' house again. This time she felt Kai with her, trailing. It surprised her that he didn't try to rush ahead; he let the dream Bonnie guide him patiently. She began to open the door and, as before, it swung inward and she almost stumbled. And there was Damon. Something new penetrated the scene and it was an unfamiliar, or rather unstable, level of rage. It radiated around her until it became her, and the dream no longer moved forward but instead its gravity dropped her out of her mind and back into the kitchen. She opened her eyes and Kai was fuming. His eyes were still closed, but the brows knit in murder and his naked shoulders huffed.

His eyes flicked open and he said, "You didn't say he was there."

"Damon?"

Kai's jawbones appeared ominously as he nodded.

"It's only for a second."

"What's he doing in there," he asked lowly with nothing but threat in his tone.

"Why do you care?" Bonnie snapped, less cowed than appalled at his behavior.

"He left you to die, Bonnie. How can you be so fucking blasé about it?"

"I'm not blasé, I'm calm. You should take a page out of _my_ spell book, don't you think?"

She watched him slowly recompose himself, trying on her own to stick to the cool exterior she preferred to wear when he was around, but she found herself bubbling inside with questions. He was letting emotions, some more than others, show. The anger was what particularly struck her, because it was anger for her wellbeing. She hadn't known that Kai harbored this; it was as much, if not more, hatred toward Damon for abandoning her when she needed him most, ultimately sentencing her to death.

"Do you wanna do this or not?" Bonnie asked, and he closed his eyes in response.

They reentered the memory of her dream and bristled past Damon's part. It was odd, Bonnie thought, how in sharing this memory with Kai, more than just his consciousness entered her. Like his anger with Damon, she could feel his thoughts, his responses to the events of her dreams as they happened. They crossed paths with Elena and she felt an extra tug of guilt on her heart, but knew this extra bit didn't belong to her. It was as if by entering her subconscious, Kai's consciousness also assumed the form of a subconscious, and emotions were accessible. Not only accessible, but damn near consuming. They sat at the kitchen table with Sheila and a stormy mix of feelings accosted Bonnie. Some were hers. Others which opposed her feelings were his. But her own grief cast a dark shadow on whatever it was Kai felt, and she couldn't make it out. And soon it was over and they opened their eyes and retracted their hands from each other, hesitantly.

"So, what? You think she's trying to communicate with me?" Bonnie asked. She noticed she was being kinder after witnessing a touch of his bare psyche in her own.

Kai didn't seem to be aware that his emotions had joined them in the memory. "Not possible. Didn't she get sucked up into Oblivion or something?" he asked without any sensibility.

"Yes," Bonnie admitted achingly, "But…it wouldn't be the first time she's reached out to me since."

Kai cocked his head in doubtful curiosity. "Explain."

"When I tried to kill myself, on my birthday after you left me in 1994," she gritted, "I don't know, this probably sounds ridiculous, but…I just felt like…she was there with me."

Kai waved her words off and said, "Oh bullshit, I was there with you."

"Excuse me?"

"Of course no one ever told you. Wouldn't make sense, me being the big bad and all."

"Kai, what are you talking about?"

"I'm the reason Jeremy was able to get through to you that day. I was supposed to be on my way out of town and they were like, 'Oh, please, it's Bonnie's birthday, help us make contact.' And I did. And you were in the middle of a mental breakdown and everyone freaked out, and then Liv showed up and tried to kill me, and I was basically dying and Jeremy was like, 'You're the only one who cares about her enough to actually risk your life,' so I did and _we_ saved you, and yada yada."

As Kai talked a mile a minute Bonnie tried to wrap her mind around this scenario. None of it seemed plausible. But she had grown suspicious of her friends the more time she spent with Kai.

"Anyway," he continued without needing her to acknowledge all the new information he was piling on. "Sounds to me like Grams is just an agent of your subconscious. Whatever doubt or guilt you're feeling right now, it's time to let it go."

Bonnie breathed and shook her head, agreeing with herself to come back to Kai's story when less caution was required of her, and less alcohol pumped through her veins. _Later_. And she picked up her cold glass of now watery vodka.

"I have no guilt," she said before thinking of Elena. "I have doubt in extreme amounts."

"Regarding?"

"This place. Myself. My sanity. You. And you. And you. And—"

"I get the point. I got mad because you wouldn't give me a chance in the real world and I exacted my revenge on your friends, built this awesome place and trapped you here with me for the rest of eternity, gave you a year by yourself to get all _Cast Away_ and desperate for social connection, came back and lied about stuff, led you to believe things won't suck, then I flipped my switch against your recommendations, acted like it was fine, took a little more blood than I should've and left you for dead…"

"I was already dead when you left me," she muttered underneath him and he kept talking without so much as a falter in his voice.

"…hit you with a chair, knocked you out and flew you back to the one place where I traumatized you the most… I get it. It's messy. I fucked up. I mean, what kind of psycho spends so much time and energy making life for one girl so miserable, and then doing a backflip and trying to make it better, and doing another backflip and…" he laughed. "Then I watched _Love, Actually_."

"You talk a lot," Bonnie said.

"You drink a lot," he retorted.

"You watched _Love, Actually_?" she made a gagging face, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"If you have to ask at this point, you'll never know."

"O-kay?"

"Just forget I told you that. _Love, Actually_. Never seen it, never wanna see it, because it's terrible and I don't think I can vomit my way through that again."

"I'm going to bed," Bonnie warned, certain she could not listen to Kai babble for a minute longer. And without waiting for him to say anything, she and her vodka went back to the guest room.

Her shorts came off the second she closed the door. She needed to get comfortable and an extra waist band wasn't doing her any favors, even if it was elastic. The lavender lace of the new panties she was finally wearing for the first time felt much better as a standalone texture against her skin.

She sat in bed, wolfed down her vodka and laid back to feel its effect on her equilibrium. Twenty minutes later, the ceiling above her wavered and swirled each time she moved her eyes and it made her laugh out loud. It seemed like a millisecond later when her phone buzzed on the bedside table. She almost fell off the bed trying to reach it, but when she finally got a hold of it and read her new text from Kai, it said: **Something funny?**

She bit her lip. He could hear her giggle all the way down in the basement.

"Great," she said out loud. And texted back.

 **Bonnie: Your face.**

She busted up laughing at her own text as she hit "send." A second later her phone vibrated with another message for her.

 **Kai: don't make me come up there.**

Conversation, in place of sleep, ensued.

 **Bonnie: Don't make me come down there.**

 **Kai: I'll make you come wherever I want.**

 **Bonnie: This again?**

 **Kai: always.**

 **Bonnie: I'm drubk.**

 **Kai: go to sleep.**

 **Bonnie: I'm too drubk.**

 **Kai:** ** _phasmatos somnus_**

 **Bonnie: phasmatos shut up**

 **Kai: phasmatos I'm coming up there**

 **Bonnie: phasmatos don't forget your shirt**

 **Kai: phasmatos I will spank you**

 **Bonnie: goodnight**

 **Kai: that's what I thought.**

 **Bonnie: stop texting me**

 **Kai: goodnight, Bonster 3**

 **Bonnie: really with that?**

 **Kai: ?**

 **Bonnie: 3?**

 **Kai: 3 3 3**

 **Bonnie: Why?**

 **Kai: they're hearts**

 **Bonnie: I know that. Why are you using them?**

 **Kai: because I less than three you?**


	14. Chapter 14

_Because I less than three you?_

Was he claiming he loved her, or just literalizing a meaningless pair of symbols for humor?

Bonnie shot up out of bed. So he gets to trap her in this world and use it to move in on her?

She stomped down the stairs, knowing full well he would hear her coming. What she was going to do when she got down there, she didn't know. At the very least, she planned to slap him. Maybe punch him. Slapping might be too kind.

The basement was dark and foreboding. She remembered sensing vaguely the ghostly presence of total absence in the darkness of the unfinished part of the basement. Still she followed the faint sound of music to his bedroom. The door was open and the lights were off, though Kai was there, leaning over his desk with his hands flat on the wood, still not dressed in anything but the towel hugging his hips. He looked up at her as if he hadn't sensed her coming.

A moonbeam from the garden level window at the top of the back wall crossed his face as he turned it and Bonnie found herself momentarily taken aback by his form, shadowed here and highlighted there. She noted his phone just a pace away on his bedside table, next to a dying candle, and the empty space before him on the desk. Had he been poring over nothing? In his eyes she could see that he registered her presence with no apparent emotional accompaniment; he was not surprised, bothered or glad. Though the spirit of satisfaction arose in his eyebrows as he took in her angry expression and rigid stance.

"Yes?" he prompted.

"You must think I'm an idiot," she snarled.

"I actually happen to think you're a very bright girl," he corrected with no hint in his voice that he was joking.

"I know you. When Kai Parker starts being nice, he wants something. Yesterday you hit me with a chair, and hours before that you killed me—"

"I didn't kill you, get it straight," he interrupted rapidly. She continued without a beat.

"Now you're acting like you'd never hurt a fly and you're texting me stupid little hearts, so I'm thinking…it's nothing ordinary you were looking for today. You need me to like you because you want something from me. Something I _really_ wouldn't want to give."

Kai nodded and looked away, letting his hands slide off the desk as his body carried him in Bonnie's direction.

"Exceptionally bright," he mused, and repositioned his eyes on her. "Unfortunately, I've already told you to drop it." He took a step closer and needed only to lean an inch to speak softly against her forehead, "Now if I were you I'd quit bringing it up. Unless you liked getting hit with a chair."

His daring proximity was the kicker. She couldn't be held accountable for her impulse.

Bonnie slammed her hand into the side of Kai's head and shoved him back. All the other candles set up sparsely across his room sparked to life with tall flames standing on their wicks. Kai regained his footing and turned a dark smile in Bonnie's direction, his face tilted down so that shadows shrouded all his face except the taunting hollows of his eyes, illuminated by candlelight.

"Obviously you're onto me and being nice isn't working, so I'll stop. Happy?"

Bonnie smiled back and swiped a Nirvana poster off the wall without touching it. She didn't think much of it but it was apparently drawing the line for Kai. His shoulders puffed up big and he approached her slowly, as if his next move required more time for thought. As always, Bonnie stood her ground.

"What if I did like it?" she said huskily, not recognizing her own voice, her own intentions. She caught her reflection in the darkest part of Kai's left eye and saw someone who looked exhilarated to be standing where she was, challenging who she was, wanting something she didn't know how to ask for.

 _And what if she did like it?_ Pain sometimes reminded her of mortality, and of ambition. Every time he hurt her, it reinforced her drive to get up and keep going long enough to hit back. Certainly she couldn't want that kind of dynamic, she scolded herself. It wasn't healthy.

 _Healthy_ … What a joke. Their relationship was anything but.

Kai was looking at her questioningly, with amusement and a glint of excitement in his eyes. Like he'd finally found something he had long been searching for, and couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. Perhaps wisely, he didn't answer her question.

"Why did you come down here? I know it wasn't just to ask for answers you don't want to hear and prance around in your underwear."

Without needing to look down Bonnie remembered she was half naked. _Damn vodka_ , making her numb and forgetful. Suddenly she felt colder, and angrier.

"Actually," she growled, "I came down here to tell you that if you text me one more heart, I'll stake yours. You don't get to _less than three_ me, not here, not now, not anywhere ever. You don't have the right."

"Is that all?"

"For now."

"Then you should go back to bed, don't you think? Big day tomorrow. Long flight."

She should, it was true. The bed upstairs was howling her name. But while they were on the subject she wanted to exhaust it. And maybe that too was the vodka, insisting that whatever fluke ran through Kai's mind reveal itself. It just seemed to Bonnie that _being nice_ to her should be enough of an act, and that taking niceness to cuteness should be too much for him. The Kai she knew wasn't the type to text hearts, with or without humanity. So she pressed.

"Why would you text me that?"

Kai's eyes, briefly, widened. With disbelief at her pressure? Deeper amusement at her nerve? She wasn't obedient; he of all people should know. His right hand twitched and he moved it to his hip, where he could hang on both to his towel and his patience.

"Bonnie, for your sake I suggest you go back to bed. Now. Or I'd feel obligated to put you to sleep myself, and I won't do it gently."

"No offense but your nineties chair looks like it'll lose in a fight with my head."

"I don't need a chair for the method I have in mind."

"Oh," Bonnie said, taking a step further into his room, the opposite direction she was being told by Kai and by her instincts. "So what this time? The desk? Your fist? I'm just curious so I can anticipate what kind of abuse I get next."

She couldn't tell who she was for a moment. On a normal day, Bonnie preferred to avoid threats or confronting danger if it wasn't going to save anyone's life. But Kai lived underneath her skin, she could feel him. And she could feel her own anger rising to this time-being uncalled for retaliation. Where she was being told explicitly to walk away she wanted to step closer and call him out for every single thing he'd ever done to hurt her. It wasn't the time and indeed so much time had passed them by, they had been through too much to drudge up any more darkness but something in her really wanted, really needed to pester him, to scratch and claw her way under his skin just as deeply. To what end, she couldn't say.

Kai mirrored her advancement and the two were two steps closer.

"None of that," he said thoughtfully.

Maybe she just needed to feel his flesh to get his ghost out of her skin. She could feel his magic, like intention, curling around her wrists and she was drawn closer.

"What then? What do I deserve this time?"

It had been a long time since that romp in the café, and on his couch the night before that. Against all odds in this temperamental moment her lower body felt warm and static with lust. She remembered how he took her, like nothing else existed. He had moved against her so feverishly it was hard to imagine what difference there might be now, if she let it happen again while his emotions were off. Or would he be a lifeless, mechanical body without them? Bonnie urged her mind to move on from these thoughts. They were talking about punishments. What she deserved for being autonomous.

"Nothing you can't handle," Kai shrugged, closing in on her and there was no longer room to break the rules, to step forward instead of backward. It was clear that if she chose not to back out now, she would run into him, and that would be the point when she got whatever it was she deserved. "What's it gonna be?" he asked. "Back to bed, or do I have to take care of you?"

"Which do you want?"

"I think you know."

"I don't, actually. I don't know what kind of man you are anymore, not really. I know you're a monster, but…what kind of a man? Do you… _want_ …to hurt me? Is that what we are? I thought you liked me _at least_ enough not to treat me this way."

"I more than like you. I less than three you."

"Kai…"

"And what I want is to rip that lace off your ass and fuck you with only moderate regard for humanity."

Bonnie was sure her facial expression was one of petrified surprise. But she had no time to check herself, or revise her reaction. He was moving.

With much visible restraint, his hand wrapped around her elbow and pulled her deeper into his room. She made no protest. It seemed futile. Three steps together and they were at the foot of his bed, and she realized that if she let it, if she let him, if she let herself…this would be the first time it happened in a bed. Something about it actualized the imminent act, placed more importance on it and them, and who they were and why it had come to this. And her fingers began to tremble with pulses of blood racing to their ends and back.

It took a single shaky breath of time for her to reconcile with the pure fact that she wanted him. That he had absolutely blasted her life to bits was not beside the point; it was front and center in her desire. To take him and all of his havoc into her seemed a proper way to spend the night. And it wasn't the vodka. It was the way his half open mouth, breathing shallowly in and out, shaped to bruise her in the coming hour; the way his eyes, so dead, smoldered the autonomy that led her to this trouble; the way every fiber of her being clamored to merge with his. And to be fucked with only moderate regard for humanity sounded less like a worrisome notion than a privilege that came with being the girl Kai made a world for.

 _Okay_ , she wanted to say, but she couldn't speak for the tremor claiming her body. He heard it anyway. He dipped his head and brushed his nose down the side of her neck, settled his mouth on her shoulder and sucked a mouthful of her flesh into a kiss. She almost gasped at the sensation, at the hardly fathomable degree to which she felt wanted. His mouth traveled along her clavicle, to the flat of her chest where her heart pounded furiously. As if he wished to kiss her heart muscle he kissed her chest each time it beat, four times and hitting harder as if it wanted just as much to be kissed. Bonnie reached up and hugged his neck, soon finding herself without gravity as his fevered hands clutched her butt and lifted her onto him. Following suit she wrapped her legs around his abdomen, digging her heel into his spine as his lips transferred from her heart to her mouth. Whatever was so funny about kissing her at the club in New York apparently wasn't funny anymore; he sucked viciously, bit forgivingly to some astonishment, and tongued around her mouth in devout worship.

 _This isn't an act_ , she had to realize. This couldn't be a means to an undesirable end. This couldn't be faked.

No sooner was her tongue prowling desperately around his mouth than her back was bouncing against his nineties twin mattress and he was a beast sitting atop her. His hands ran up from her butt, stopping for a moment to squeeze her breasts rather harshly, and then moved onto pinning her shoulders back. It didn't stop her from reaching down and digging her fingers underneath the knot of his towel. However long it had been since she last felt him inside her, her cunt cried to feel him again. She could already feel herself contracting in expectation, and likewise Kai became visibly hard beneath his towel.

At the same moment she looked up and sought his eyes, his fell to hers and they exchanged a look. Bonnie didn't know what it meant, couldn't read behind his tight pupils and irises what he was thinking, of her and of what they were doing. Maybe it was nothing. But a murmur in her chest declared something ominous. Something that would be construed too meaningfully in her mind, and too meaninglessly in his.

Her vision glazed over as she fell out of the moment, her fingers in their wanton expedition to release Kai's cock stopped and grew numb with pause. She felt, distantly, his hand leave her shoulder to hook the hem of her shirt and draw it up. She let him free her breasts, and even moved in slight ways to help him take the shirt completely off. When he fastened his mouth on her nipple, she breathed. When his tongue threshed against it hardening, she moaned. When the tips of his fangs punctured the swell of fat and he licked the blood clean up, she cried out in pleasure. Her back arched, pressing the length of her body up into his; there was no escaping him. No worming out from underneath him, no room to remain a single body for much longer and as she relaxed back into his bed he laid fully on her, his weight and his hunger crushing.

Before she could register it, he had bit into his wrist and pressed the wound to her lips, and she was sucking his blood in greater, thicker volumes than he had hers. In the seconds she could keep her eyes open, she watched him close his and bite his lip.

"Mm, I still don't understand this," he said breathily, "Doesn't make sense why it feels so good."

His words sent a new kind of pride panging through her, and she had to have more of it. It and his blood, it tasted so…sweet? But it wasn't sugary. It was a hot tincture of metallic, uncomfortably vitalizing nectar, something that when it filled her mouth made her feel as if she was drinking the cure for all her ailments and she didn't want to stop. She wondered if the frenzy beginning to collect in her nerves was comparable to what Kai felt when he drank her blood. Of course his need was greater…he survived on her blood. His, for her, was a luxury. But she didn't know how she forgot it if it wasn't in her mouth. Even felt repulsed by the idea of it, until it actually touched her tongue, sank between her teeth, lilted down her throat and coated her insides with its heavenly treatment. She let her eyelids fall so she could savor.

* * *

Kai watched in agonizing pleasure as Bonnie sucked the life out of him.

 _Is this what it's like_ , he thought, every time he takes her to the edge of death? Drains her? Was this how she felt? Not possible. Because despite the slowing of his heart as he let her take her fill, it wasn't fear or worry or annoyance riling up in the emotional storage compartment of his mind. Possibly the only annoying part of this was that he could detect any feelings at all and it wasn't supposed to be happening. But he calmed his frustration by hanging onto the notion that maybe it was important, this breach in humanity-off protocol. Maybe it was important to sense the one overtaking feeling busting through all the doors in his brain.

It was the one feeling, above all else, he had wanted to shut out.

To distract himself he dragged his fingernails down Bonnie's body and palmed her cunt, winning a satisfactory moan from somewhere deep in her belly. He thrusted the heel of his hand against her pubic bone a few rhythmic times before decidedly curling his fingers around the lace edges at the side of her labia, poising to tear the panties off as promised.

* * *

"No," she pleaded, her enunciation lost in the corroded veins of his wrist. She widened her mouth and pulled his arm away, taking a moment to swallow the last of his blood in her mouth and take a breath before she looked into his eyes again. Respectfully, he waited for her to say, "No," again.

For how much she wanted him inside her that instant, it felt too right. His skin against hers, his magic entangled in hers, his blood in her belly and her heart in her throat, it all felt too right. And she couldn't handle that. _Nothing you can't handle_ , he had promised. And the weight of emotive response in her chest was not tolerable. If she took his body into hers this time she knew she'd start—or continue—feeling with heightened intensity a kind of mourning she couldn't explain to herself. Whether it was mourning for life when it was simple, or for Kai's humanity, or for his humanness, or for the time between 1994 and 1903, she didn't know. She mourned them all in unique ways, felt regret in varying amounts for different choices she had made. Buried beneath all of these memories and emotions was the split-second omen revealed to her in the murmur of her heart, in the blackness of Kai's eyes, in the coiling of insurmountable pain coming to her attention every second that brought her closer to rushing the beginning of his sex to the end of hers. For how much she needed to, she needed also to consider the consequences she didn't know existed until just now.

Kai sat up and she followed, hugging her breasts to herself. She got out of his bed, trampled her own shirt on the way to the door and stopped. The idea of going back upstairs to the bed she should've never left, she realized, was still not an option. He would let her, she knew. But she didn't want to leave him alone with that erection which she knew from experience would probably not back down easily. More than that, she didn't want to leave him. He was often rotten, and for a long time she settled to treat him like a blight on her life, and right now he was emotionally impaired, but if he was anything without waver, he was hers.

He sat on his knees, on his bed, looking to her, watching her leave him. She wiped the wetness, blood, from her mouth onto her arm and retraced her steps back to him. To her, he seemed a creature watching her fold and unfold before him, studying without understanding, curious. When she reached the bed, she climbed back in on her knees, pushed him this way and that until his head hit the pillow and he was right where she wanted him. Just once, she rubbed dried blood from her mouth onto his in a kiss, and it was the first in a line of kisses down his neck, his chest, his abs… She dug her knuckles intently into the knot of his towel and loosened it, and let the corners slide away down each of his hips.

His cock stood tall and ready, and when the fresh air hit him he sat up and tried to bring her down with him, to continue where they left off in the same volatile manner…but she gently, too gently, eased him back down again. She let the ends of her hair trail along his skin before gripping the base of his dick.

She'd never done this before.

* * *

He didn't know what to make of her, or any of this, and why she slowed it down, and how that racked his patience, until he felt heat at the tip of his dick…and then wetness…Bonnie's tongue circling his head. How could she do this to him, _why_ would she..? And when did he earn it? He exhaled shakily and dug his fingers into the sheets. Her lips formed a kiss at his tip, he could feel it, and they tightly descended over the rest of his head, bringing it into her warm mouth. He felt the ridges in the top of her mouth, little hints of molars dinging against him but it wasn't painful. His heart, slow from giving her so much of his blood, began jerking back to life.

His fangs, still protruding from the giving and taking of blood, sank back into his gums as something altogether human washed over him. He lifted his head off the pillow to look down at her; he could only see her hair, narrowed brows, her closed eyes, watch the lashes brush against his skin and they tickled each time she lowered, each time taking more of his length into her mouth. Her tongue slid torturously around his circumference with every dip, and she dragged the serrated top of it along the bottom of his cock with each upward suck. He didn't know whether to feel privileged or bothered that she seemed to know what she was doing, for any other man lucky enough to have received this gift from her was now on his mental hit list. And he thought for the time being this was better than sex, because in a weird way it struck him as an admission on her part. Bonnie wouldn't do this for him if she wasn't feeling something for him, and he knew if he could still feel it too he would surely end up vocalizing that gross thing he could never tell her.

That gross feeling. The one booming from the recesses of his supposed-to-be dormant emotion center. The one making him reach down and hold her naked shoulder blade as it stuck out and receded and stuck out and receded with each of her movements, and making his other hand reach down to cup the base of her skull, massage her scalp in encouragement for the thing she was doing to him, uncharacteristically careful not to jerk her into choking on his formidable size because hurting her was the last thing he wanted right now, or ever.

He felt his lower jaw becoming rickety, vibrating on the hinges from his skull in debasing pleasure and he closed his eyes, shook his head to shake any hint of that feeling back to its cage, rattle it dead, call it good. The harder he tried, the wider it spread, and the more of him that disappeared into Bonnie's mouth the less of him had any will to fight it.

" _I_ …" he breathed, and rounded out the unwelcome sound with a moan. And the feeling shrank back at the emergence of temporary fear, but that quickly slithered back into dormancy. " _I_ …" he faltered, " _fuck_."

Between Bonnie's fist and mouth, his cock was gone. All around it he felt the whirling suction of her silky, wet cheeks; a surplus of applause-worthy saliva coating him and dripping down her fist, into his hair, drenching his skin. He began to notice her wrist pressing on his balls and letting up, continuously. Everything all at once became overwhelming, unbearable, her wrist, her teasing tongue, those dangerous teeth, his tip begging at the back of her throat, his blood coursing wrathfully downward and nowhere else, his formerly human heart beating for this and nothing else, how much he wanted to arrive at the summit of all this and come in her mouth so he wouldn't have to feel so anxious anymore, or to slide out, flip her on her back and come inside her like the Gemini leader in him burned to do, to fulfill destiny.

His thoughts were getting weird. He loathed being a Heretic more and more each day, despite the switch.

He loved Bonnie, more and more each day, despite the switch.

* * *

In her fist Bonnie could feel Kai's pulse, blood pumping through his cock, and it turned her on. And she wanted nothing more than to spit him out and take him into her cunt. But she was good at being stubborn. She guided him up the point of no return, felt the twitch that signified the beginning of the end, tasted his coppery, warm cum spilling into her mouth, listened to him grunt and groan through his orgasm as he clawed uncontrollably into her back and her hair, and the pride she felt earlier skyrocketed. He didn't deserve this, but she wanted to give it regardless, and she was glad. She swallowed his ejaculate, licked him clean like the kind of girlfriend she didn't know she was, and now that she was in it for all of this, decided the bed upstairs just wasn't in her cards and sleepily laid next to her drained, panting Kai.

The second her head joined his on the only pillow, he turned. He wrapped his hands around the back of her neck, thumbed the corner of her aching jaw and planted a long, open-mouthed kiss on her lips. At least he was grateful.

Moments later, he found enough energy to locate his blankets and pull them up over both of their spent bodies. Bonnie had no doubt Kai was exhausted from what sounded like a pretty great orgasm, but giving one was just as exhausting. She snuggled up against his sweaty chest, draped her arm over him, and in little time, she fell asleep without a care whether he followed, what he thought about when he looked at her or what secrets he was keeping.


	15. Chapter 15

He almost said it. Those words…when just thinking of them made bile rise in his throat. Yet the fact that they remained unspoken agitated him, and what bothered him more was not understanding why he felt the need to say them, to tell her, to make sure the knowledge was in her brain, just in case. In case of what? In case she didn't hate him enough already? But she had to know, she had to hear it, he needed to tell it, to not be alone with it curdling inside him, this warm, bubbling, filth of a feeling.

And it was only watered down.

He lay awake in bed, on his side, watching Bonnie sleep. Only a sliver of sunlight fell in from the small window up above and his room remained mostly dark. He suspected they'd slept longer than they should've. Trying not to move the bed so much, he reached out to the bedside table to check the time on his phone. It was almost eleven. He turned back to Bonnie and sighed. He didn't want to wake her; except for panties, she was naked and in his bed. What more could he ask for? But flying would be best in the daylight, and they had a lot of flying ahead of them if he was going to stay true to his promise. Maybe he'd give her five more minutes to sleep; five more minutes for him to admire her. He traced the grooves in her naked back, thinking.

He could tell by the minor breakthrough he experienced the night before that he was close to turning his emotions back on. He couldn't let that happen. He'd promised himself never to utter those words to Bonnie. Texting them in less confrontational terms was important to his cause, and he tried to remain convinced it was the only reason he texted her those stupid hearts in the first place. It was all part of the plan to win her affection, trust, and allegiance, and any part of himself that begged to differ should be suppressed.

All things, clear as they were at the time he turned his humanity off, were growing hazy. The clearest object in his mind now was that he needed to do something that would lay cement over his humanity, to keep it from ballooning up to the surface every time he looked at Bonnie.

He didn't know what that something would be, or who all needed to witness it for there to be enough damage. Furthermore as he thought about it, while he could sense his emotions progressively more each day, he had no idea how to snap them back on if the time did come, nor did he have any clue why he didn't just try and do that. Logically thinking, he knew it was his own unbearable feelings for Bonnie that inspired this, and he knew that she missed that crushed version of him, missed him so much she had kissed him when she thought he was back. By all accounts, now was the time to come back, to claim a reward he deserved. But aside from not knowing how, he didn't want to. Even if she stopped wrenching his heart out of his chest and stomping on it with her cute little shoes, he wasn't ready to feel his feelings at full force. At the same time…she gave him what was probably the best blowjob he'd ever had, his first in twenty years at least, even with his soul shut off. Which meant, if it wasn't one of her tactics to bring him back, she was beginning to accept him this way. Bonnie wasn't the kind of girl who did that kind of thing for the kind of person he had been lately. He didn't deserve it, or even ask for it, and somehow it was given to him. It forced him to wonder if a.) she drank much more than he could gauge, b.) he finally drove her crazy, or c.) the _less than three_ disease was spreading. Impossible and…enticing as that notion was, it didn't hurt his plan. Actually, it was going to make things easier than expected.

As long as he could preserve whatever it was that drove her to take him in her mouth, destiny was manifest.

 _Patience._ Patience was paramount. Next to finding a delicate balance between their polar opposite demeanors. Like the air in the glass ascendant. It hung forever encased in the glass walls that were designed by his malcontent to devastate her. They needed to be like it: eternal.

Bonnie stirred. Wanting to usher her closer to consciousness, he started petting her hair softly. She made a sound that let him know she was awake, even though her eyes were closed, and she could feel him petting her. Something primal in him heard her sound and it made him want to kickstart her day. He traced her spine all the way down, letting each finger skim along the way until his hand landed on her butt. He let it sit there for a few seconds, committing the way it felt to palm her firm, lacey buttock, before he squeezed.

"Oh really?" he heard her voice murmur into the pillow.

In response, he moved his hand over the center of her bottom and let his fingers navigate down, between her cheeks, into the spot her thighs kept warm. With dead accuracy, he pressed his middle finger in between her folds with only the thin lace blocking his entry. She jerked at this, and flipped over to scald him with her disapproving eyes.

"You're right," he laughed, "Wouldn't want to be stuck here another four hours."

"Four?" she laughed back. "I don't need that long."

"To take thorough care of you, I need at least two," he said. "And we need to skedaddle."

"But I'm so comfy," she moaned, closing her eyes again and burrowing under the covers.

"You and beds."

"It's your bed."

"Mhm, and you can lay in it as long as you want," he said, leaning over to nuzzle her hair. "Paris is your thing, I can wait."

"No," she grumbled. She pushed her weight up on her elbows and yawned. "Let's go."

"Ok!"

He leapt excitedly out of bed, the blankets falling from his body and Bonnie burst into giggles.

"You're naked," she reminded, blushing and hiding her face. He looked down at his morningwood and back at Bonnie.

"Will that be a problem?"

"Um…"

He smirked, highly satisfied that he had made her laugh, and carefully stuffed himself into yesterday's jeans, feeling her eyes on him and her magic radiating curiously. There was definitely something about her. She'd slept off last night's vodka and she wasn't attacking him. It was weird.

Could she now be wanting something _he_ wouldn't want to give?

Humanity, naturally. It was a ploy. She was faking it. Had to be.

* * *

What Bonnie most wanted to understand was herself.

She woke up in Kai's bed, with Kai, and there was so much bare skin, and she felt dangerously safe. After everything with him, she felt comfortable. Between waking up and his bed and waking up after he stabbed and abandoned her in 1994, there had been an unimpeachable discomfort lying under every moment, even when she'd put him away and was back with her friends, even when things should have been good, she was ruined. And now, somehow, she finally sank through that thick layer of trauma in her subconscious and was…fine. But why? Nothing had improved. Arguably they'd only gotten worse. For some odd reason she had chosen to let Kai be her first for oral sex partner, both times while he was emotionally unavailable. She questioned what she might do with him next, how far she might let herself go with him. It seemed they were far enough already, but she'd learned not to doubt him, or herself, when it came to surpassing limits. Inevitably they would find some new fucked up and exciting way to pass time in this world. That wasn't an improvement; it was her succumbing to depravity.

Maybe she felt at ease with him because they were having a good patch, but those never lasted long. She knew better than to feel safe, or comfortable, or fine, or to fall for his charms when he felt like exuding them. Her complacence could've also derived from the knowledge that she was a worthy adversary in their bad patches, and even when it wasn't a fair fight she could play Lazarus and rise from death, rejuvenated. The only part of her he could destroy, she realized, was her mentality. Her soul. Her heart. And that was all the more reason to stay guarded, to shut him out and her emotions in, much like he'd done to her.

But his eyes… His eyes and how expressive they could be; how they changed when he looked up from any given task to see her; how they alone reacted to each thing she said separately, each sentence, each shift in connotative mood, so she knew he was listening if he wasn't watching her lips; how his eyes, even with apathy, aroused her empathy.

And how they were causing her to dress. Even for the hours of travel ahead that were sure to be long and grueling, she spent half an hour making herself look good. She used a shimmery makeup she snagged from Burberry and chose to wear a loose, golden yellow dress that hung low in the front and high at the bottom. Even Caroline might've done a double take if she were there, and make some direct comment about how much she looked like an attention-whore. But the dress was designer and they weren't in high school anymore, so maybe she'd be a bit more encouraging. Besides, she wouldn't know about the thong underneath and how passive-aggressively Bonnie burned to do the it-thing with Kai. She knew herself well enough to know she wouldn't be the instigator, and maybe that was why she made these decisions, and why she had the idea she might at one point bend over to pick up her luggage and show Kai what she was working with underneath… she wanted to give him no choice but to give her no choice, to see her in this compromising way and grab her by the hips like she was his for the taking and take, just like that, even if they were in the middle of the front yard and there was nothing to hold on to.

"You're turning into a floozy," she scolded herself out loud in the mirror, and then blanched and put her hand over her mouth because he might've heard from wherever he was while he waited for her to get ready.

 _Floozy_. She looked herself up and down and rolled her eyes.

But the way she felt about him and the way she projected to feel after having him inside her again insisted otherwise. She couldn't currently imagine doing or feeling any of these things with another man, even if there was another present. Jeremy crossed her mind and she found herself void of that sweet little pang of mourning in her heart she was accustomed to whenever she thought of him here. Actually, she felt…nothing. Nothing but the need to go back to picturing Kai pounding into her in the middle of the yard.

The time spent getting ready was worth just the look on his face when she finally came dragging her suitcase down the stairs. Hearing her coming, he looked like he was on his way to get the front door for her, and stopped dead in the middle of the foyer to raise his eyebrows. Contrary to her expectations, he didn't whistle or make any suggestive comments. He only looked at her, his expression shifting from bored to pleasantly surprised to smirking suspicion, then opened the front door and waved her on.

Something struck her as she passed him and she noticed he had done some getting ready of his own. He was still wearing yesterday's jeans, but also a black Nirvana shirt with a very nineties jean jacket over a hooded sweatshirt, and what startled her most…

"You shaved," she remarked, not so pleasantly surprised.

"Yup." His hand flew up to feel his own smooth chin. He looked identical to the Kai she met in 1994, the stranger calling her 'the useless one' while Damon writhed on the floor. He was still thicker with muscle in the neck and his jawbones slightly more defined, but the lack of stubble framing his smirk gave way to flashbacks.

Bonnie nodded at him, faking a smile and walking past him. She needed to stop seeing that version of him every time she was reminded of it. He was different.

* * *

It took a day, two stops to refuel, and enduring Kai's authoritative captain speeches over the plane's intercom (she chose not to sit in the cockpit with him)…but at last the plane touched official ground at Charles de Gaulle airport in sunny Paris, France. By that time Bonnie had changed into pajamas on the plane, but wanted to see the sights of the city first thing. They chose a rental car from the airport and Kai drove them around to see the Eiffel Tower, then the Arc de Triomphe, then to refuel themselves at a local cafe, where Bonnie sat prettily and in a better mood than she could have anticipated, trying to pronounce the french she read on the menu and not to speak a word of english to Kai for the whole brunch. He played along, speaking his own butchered french right back to her. They walked around the city, Bonnie stopping every few shops to try on a dress she saw in the window and model it for Kai. He approved of them all, and so Bonnie collected armfuls of bags as the afternoon passed. In the evening they backtracked to the oldest looking hotel they'd seen and stayed the night, though in separate rooms at Bonnie's insistence. She knew if he was too close to her she might cave. Alone and again with multiple floors between her room and Kai's, Bonnie filled her ice bucket and poured herself a tall glass of Cointreau Noir on ice. She slept with a pleasant, orangey peace in her belly, and the memory of the day's sights behind her eyelids. She did not dream.

The next day she dragged Kai to The Louvre where she admired and he defiled great art. By evening, she tired of Paris for the same reasons she had tired of New York. "It feels weird without people," she said.

So they drove to Versailles and stayed in the palace for a week.

They thrived sleeping in the rooms of royalty, playing dress-up with their clothes and a witchy form of hide-and-seek in which the seeker used their sense of the other's magic to find the hider. It lasted about as long as Bonnie could tolerate Kai winning too quickly because of the advantages his vampirism added. They ate al fresco between the tall trees overlooking the water, swam in the fountain, strolled the grounds from dusk till the dead of night, lost themselves in the maze, drank wine, Bonnie drank too much wine and tried not to kiss Kai, and failed once. It happened after a day of a vicious game of tag where, in equally drunken rages, the two dashed back and forth throughout the long halls of the palace, in and out of rooms, leaving messes like hell behind them. Kai promised to run at human speed, but he was still fast, and too soon during his one and only turn as _it_ , Bonnie found herself tackled to the floor, pinned and pining. He could see the longing in her eyes, and his own failed to conceal a surprising similarity. The kiss was deep, slow, soft…more romantic than either one could have intended. It ended, not with a trail of clothing leading to any of the gigantic beds, but with the scent of smoke in the air. On fire with how much she wanted him and hated herself, Bonnie had started a literal fire. Drunk and laughing, they fled to fetch their luggage and that was the night they left the Chateau de Versailles, burning.

* * *

Kai, more than Bonnie, wanted to find a place to settle before Christmas. As they drove out from central France, he watched her fall deeper and deeper in love with the countryside as she leaned out of the window. She batted her lashes more at the cottages and trees than ever at him.

On a dirt road with no surroundings but meadows full of trees, tall grass and flowers, a particular cottage was so much to her liking she sat up on her knees in the passenger seat, bounced rambunctiously up and down and pointed for him to look at. So he pulled into its driveway, parked and turned the car off.

He turned to look at Bonnie, who turned agape from him to the three story, white stone-walled, sky-blue-shuttered cottage. It had a tall, sharp, grey roof from which the second floor windows extended, two chimneys and a blue door that matched the shutters. A mess of vines grew diagonally across the right side, seeming to reach for the door.

"Welcome home," he said.

Giddily she stepped out of the car, and Kai followed her anxiously toward the front door. Anxiously, because he had been too kind. Too soft. He'd been keeping up this nice-guy facade since Portland and it was really starting to make him nauseous. And itchy. Burning down Versailles was somewhat of an outlet but they did it together, and while that was bonding it wasn't enough for him. He wanted to set the fire with his bare hands, bust furniture, break a heart, crush a skull. Not Bonnie's, of course. He couldn't even picture it without a haunting sense of something coming close, and he couldn't even entertain the idea of ravaging this little cottage she was fawning over. He would be in so much trouble.

All he really needed to do was rip someone's head off; he'd been avoiding her neck and drinking from a stash of blood bags he collected from a Paris hospital. Maybe the nausea then was due to malnourishment. After feeding from Bonnie semi regularly, blood bags sucked. It was like switching from fresh barbecue to TV dinners. He couldn't stop thinking about blood. He was following her on a pretty cobblestone path and _blood blood blood_ , passing between rows of healthy flower gardens and _blood._

He stepped ahead of her to hold open a little gate between two low, stone walls, one side bearing a plaque with the word, " _Eternite_." He read it out loud with a french accent he knew should probably embarrass him more than it did. "That's interesting."

"What?" Bonnie asked as she walked through the gate.

 _Because you're mine for eternity_ , he thought.

"These people thought their home would last forever," he said.

"Well it's ours now." She sighed her way up to the front door, then added sadly, "And it will."

* * *

The cottage's interior made Bonnie's interior flush with panic. This was hers. This house where someone in the real world actually lived, she now could do what she wanted with in her own dimension. But she didn't feel the need to change a thing.

"Oh the godliness," she heard Kai exclaim behind her, because the house was immaculate. It was ordered and seemingly untouched. "Must be someone's holiday home."

The foyer opened up to a vast living space, lit brightly from the wide front windows and furnished with two long couches upholstered in off-white canvas. They were separated by an oak coffee table, and held together by a stone fireplace, the mantle over which held a row of family photos in frames. "I'll fix that," Kai said, noticing them at the same time. He waved his hand and all the pictures vanished, leaving the frames empty and new pictures of something, anything, to be desired. "Good thing I swiped a camera, eh Bon?"

She scoffed, "For what?"

He gave her his dumbest look yet.

"What else? …You must've skipped a few episodes of Reading Rainbow or something. I'll fill you in. Cameras? They take pictures. You know, like, little 2D versions of me and you on paper? So we can fill those frames because this is now our dope _maison de_ madness?"

Bonnie shook her head at him.

"Right…pictures. Memories. Of you and the times we have here. Totally want those."

She felt him rolling his eyes behind her and moved on to the rest of the house.

"This wallpaper," was all she had to say of the pink and white paisley walls. They were decorated here and there with classical candle sconces; she heard Kai bump into one and mutter something about being, " _a vampire, dammit_."

They passed through the dining room, where a long oak table overlooked a stone patio and fields of lavender out the windows. They went onto the kitchen, hidden and quaint but boasting much counter space for the preparation of big meals. There was a stone bar with four of the same sky blue colored stools Bonnie could picture herself sitting on with a midnight snack, or drink. One countertop was stocked with a row of tea tins, organized from tallest to shortest, ending with a tiny white teacup and saucer set there suggestively. "These people like their tea," she noted.

"We," Kai corrected, "like our tea."

"Love it," she agreed with a false grin. _But I like my liquor better_ , she thought, planning right then to raid the house for liquor later. Her own personal stash was depleted.

Bonnie led the tour back out to the main living areas, where she noticed a reading nook she hadn't seen on the way in. Two tall bookcases, filled back to front and side to side with books, cornered an only _sort of_ comfortable looking white chair. Really, it looked like it was stolen from the Chateau de Versailles. But on the other side of it was a long window seat lined with a creamy pink cushion, complete with a grey floral accent pillow and framed by flowing white curtains that looked like they would serve as a privatizing wall between the reader and the rest of the house. She smiled to herself and moved on.

The staircase was not so grand as those at the palace. It was a spiral only wide enough for one person, or two very comfortably close people, to walk up it at one time, and it creaked dangerously when climbed. But what it led to made Bonnie's heart leap more than the fear of making the spiral staircase collapse.

There was a small bathroom with striped wallpaper and a pink porcelain toilet. There was a sun room and a large balcony over the patio on the ground floor. There were dual his and hers master bedrooms, linked by one of the nicest domestic bathrooms she'd ever seen. There was a tea parlor with an antique little table and chairs for children, and one for adults that was just slightly bigger. The windows looked out to the front of the house, a field of yellow flowers between it and the dense forest they'd passed in the car.

One of the other rooms, opposite the tea parlor, was for a little girl and its windows looked over the back of the house. If Bonnie leaned against the window, she could see the lavender fields that were seen from the dining room at the side of the house, and if she looked straight out she could see a miniature cottage a short walk out in the tall grasses just behind the house. It resembled almost perfectly the large version she was standing in, but its door was child height and, even though Bonnie was short, she could tell she would need to crouch if she wanted in. Whatever family owned this cottage had a small daughter. Maybe five or six years old, and if Bonnie could tell anything from the intricacy and care put into decorating her room, or from the pictures Kai made vanish, she had the world. Bonnie hoped she was happy, in the real world. Maybe in that dimension she was standing in the same spot Bonnie was, looking wistfully out the window at her private little house in the grass. Maybe she was playing in it. Bonnie glanced to a tiny picture frame hanging on the wall and there she was, a brunette with curls in contradictorily ordinary clothes, smiling with what looked like strawberry sauce and whipped cream smeared across her face, a ruined birthday cake in front of her. As she stared, catching herself smiling acutely, the picture vanished.

Bonnie turned around to see Kai with his hand up, having just made the photograph disappear, and smiling darkly at her.

"We can replace that one, too," he assured.

Bonnie glared. "Hm."

She wanted to spend more time in the little girl's room, learning that she harbored a childish level of jealousy, but she wasn't about to start playing with toys while Kai was breathing down her neck. He was literally approaching her from behind and she could feel his breath fanning her shoulders. As she turned to walk out, he hooked an arm around her hip, his hand spidering out across her lower belly and clutching to pull her into him. Her cheeks warmed up and she felt a horrible hunger for him, but squirmed anyway for her own self preservation. He only kept her long enough to plant a quick kiss on the side of her neck, then let her leave the room. But he stayed behind a moment.

* * *

"I can die now," Bonnie said, splaying out on her bed in the _hers_ master bedroom while Kai brought in her luggage.

He chuckled, "Not on my watch."

"I can. I have it all." She stared up at the ceiling dreamily, not really seeing what her eyes were pointed at. She was seeing her life as a whole. Here, she could easily pretend she was just on an extended vacation, renting a dream house in a dream country.

"Not all of it…" Kai noted as he left her things by a writing desk in front of the window.

"Well, I don't have my friends, or a family anymore, really. Or a future, or a career, or an education since I've spent the majority of my college years being basically dead." She couldn't help but laugh, "I don't have anything. Just this amazing house!" She squealed and kicked her feet against the ruffly bedspread.

"And me."

Kai was standing at the foot of the bed with his hands dancing on the iron frame. She shrugged.

"I guess you're something."

"But there is something else you could have," he teased, trailing his hand to the end of the iron as he sauntered around the bed in her direction.

"What," she asked in monotone. She didn't know if she wanted to know what he could mean. She sat up so he might be deterred from joining her on the bed. But he only looked down at her and thumbed her hair out of her face.

"Tonight."

His eyes were thoughtful, and she was officially curious. Maybe, finally, she was about to find out what he was looking for, what he found, back in Portland. Then he walked out of the room with the smug sort of air that he knew he was leaving her on an annoying cliffhanger.


	16. Chapter 16

Bonnie's room came with a rustic chic armoire. She knew Kai wanted to stay in this cottage for a while, and so did she, thus the unpacking and hanging of clothes was ceremoniously commenced. All her clothes from New York, all her clothes from Paris and the hat she basically stole from Marie Antoinette… She felt faintly satisfied looking at all her dream clothes to wear around her dream house, to dirty up while working in her dream garden and to flow behind her while running the length of the dream property… She felt like she was in a living piece of art.

She stowed her iPod in a desk drawer, next to a new box of colorful French cigarettes, one of which dangled from the corner of her lips with a delicate wisp of smoke at the end. She placed her grimoire in the center of the desk, smoothing her hands lovingly over the cover, mentally noting to add a few things in there when she found the time. _Time_. She had so much of it, though.

Outside the sun was setting over the top of the forest, casting a particularly unsettling shade of blue in her bedroom. She didn't know if it was the colors outside changing the light, or the colors in the room, or their coordinates, or her mind. That morning in the car, with Kai driving and her hair whooshing out the window in the cool, summer morning air while the sky grew lighter, nature grew thicker, the road grew rockier…she felt good. She felt strong. She felt like she was hanging in there. Now all of a sudden she was seeing shadows cross her peripheral vision, but every time she turned they were gone. She was haunted, absolutely flanked, by darkness. And that ghost, that pinprick of dementia in the back of her brain, was coming back. It was random, but she wanted to commit a running leap of suicide out her bedroom window. And to feel the glass burst against her flesh, at least to remind herself she was a feeling creature.

She puffed away on her cigarette, resisting this temptation, ignoring the thought. What would Kai do? The first time she offed herself, he was so disappointed he confessed big secrets and then left her for weeks. She didn't want him to leave again. She hated, too, that her life was less of a reason not to jump out the window. She was better than basing her life's worth on anything to do with any man, and especially not _him_.

 _Christmas is coming_ , she reminded herself. _Cheer up_.

She had finished ordering her belongings and stuffed her suitcase in the bottom of the armoire as well. Now with nothing to do, she went to the window, ran her hands through her hair while inhaling from the cigarette. Lungs full, she pinched the cigarette from her lips and dabbed the cherry out on her arm, coughing out a cloud after a thoughtless gasp of pain.

Her phone buzzed. She flicked her cigarette out the window. On her way to find out what Kai had to say, it buzzed a second time.

 **Kai:** **dinner. kitchen. ten minutes**.

 **Kai: I can smell your cancer sticks.**

She rolled her eyes and threw her phone onto the bed.

Bonnie tried to shake the fog out of her head. She needed to change, inside and out. She selected a black dress she had just put away. This particular one she had grabbed from a shop in Paris on her way out; she never tried it on so Kai hadn't yet seen it. Despite her weird mental state, she desperately wanted to cling to the dynamic that existed since he came in her mouth in Portland. She wanted to look good for him, even if she was drowning inside. Eliciting his attention this way gave her a thrill because she knew she could succeed at making him feel _something_ with his humanity off.

The dress fit snugly around her hips, but it fit nonetheless. It was tight all around, really. The cotton material started high at the base of her clavicles, but hung from the ends of her shoulders where the sleeves became intricate, black lace. They extended all the way down her arm, flaring out at the ends to envelop half her hands. The dress stopped short mid-thigh. She happened to glance at the writing on the tag before she ripped it off and saw the dress was worth three hundred euros. Seeing it on herself, she thought it would've been worth every one, had she paid for it. If it could perform tricks, like flipping Kai's switch and convincing him to find a way to get them home, she'd go back to that shop and really buy it.

She completed her look with a lipstick that was so dark it appeared black at first glance. She looked like she was going to a funeral more than a housewarming dinner.

* * *

"Mmm. Call me old-fashioned but I like my witches dressed in black," he said admiringly when she walked into the kitchen. She stretched her dark lips into a smile and felt cartoonish. Kai cocked his head sideways to look her up and down again. "Killer dress, Bonster. Very Coco Chanel meets Courtney Love."

"I'll change."

"No, no, I take it back. Coco Chanel meets…my future wife."

"You're making it worse."

"Ok, ok, Chanel meets…Nice legs," he commented, apparently unable to complete any more thoughts.

"Kai," she laughed, less embarrassed than flattered. But he didn't need to know that his annoying comments were becoming confidence boosters. She took her seat at a stool where he couldn't ogle from where he stood in the kitchen. A plate full of steaming, saucy vegetables waited on the bar in front of her.

Instead of dressing up for their first meal in the cottage, he wore the same old t-shirt and jeans look, but kept on a cooking apron full of fresh finger-painted stains. He set his plate on the countertop opposite her and stood to eat so they could face each other.

"I tried to make Ratatouille," he announced proudly, "Pretty sure I slayed it. In that I failed."

Bonnie raised her eyebrows. "Admitting failure. That's new for you."

She'd never tried ratatouille before and had no basis for comparison, but… Whatever he used to put the dish together, it was so good it pissed her off. After mulling over her first bite, she banged her fist on the bar and swallowed enough of the food in her mouth to mutter, "Shit." Which made Kai smile and look down to his food, and they ate in peace for a few moments of rare silence.

Freshly picked marigolds that weren't there earlier sat in a vase of water to Bonnie's right. Someone was either trying too hard or buttering her up for bad news.

"I hope those didn't come from my garden," she scolded domestically.

Kai played along with unbridled enthusiasm. "Never would I ever, dear!"

Laughing quietly she wiggled on her stool to adjust the bottom of her dress that was riding sneakily up her thighs, and happened to see in one lean to the left that the ascendant was sitting on the stove behind Kai. Familiar unease tingled. She played it off with the casually voiced wonder, "What's that doing down here?"

"Huh? Oh, that. I was just…tinkering."

"Why?" Bonnie smelled a lie.

"There was just a little crack in the glass. I fixed it."

She shook her head, said, "Whatever. Tinker Bell," and went back to eating.

* * *

God damn it, he was going to say it.

At this point he could trick himself into believing it was all part of the game. True lies. And he itched like a flea-bitten dog to let the rest follow. His secrets were bothering him, trying to slip out every time he talked just to untangle the very tangled web he'd woven for himself. There was no way he was getting through the rest of this day without blabbing his whole agenda from top to bottom. If a little three word _sweet nothing_ slipped its foot in his mouth-door, so be it. He'd let her crucify him, so long as he could feel the lightness of having told her.

He began the dinner conversation he knew would naturally orchestrate such sentiments.

"I bet these schmucks got married here."

Bonnie shrugged, but didn't stop chewing to add anything.

"It's big. _Romantic_ ," he tempted in a sultry tone of voice, trying his best to look seductive while also stuffing his face.

Without looking up at him, she said, "Don't eye-fuck with your mouth full."

He laughed, swallowed and nodded in admission. "I'm just saying, this place has the works. You've got the space for a ton of schmucky guests, pretty trees, flowers galore for the arrangements and whatnot, it's already basically a honeymoon spot, and the king's bed at Versailles was great but the one upstairs can NOT be topped, I took a cat nap earlier and, yeah, amazing. And the bathtub…" he whistled, "It looks like it was practically designed to bust ovaries if you know what I'm saying although I'm more of a shower sex guy myself. But the shower up there is pretty big. _I'd_ get married here," he pressed, "Wouldn't you?"

He waited. Bonnie didn't seem to be catching his drift at all.

"I always pictured getting married in Mystic Falls, for some reason," she sighed dully. "I've never put much thought into it like people seem to expect girls to do."

A lot of emphasis was placed on marriage in the Gemini coven. His own house was a common wedding spot for coven and family members. Frankly he wasn't used to meeting girls who didn't have the whole event dreamed up and planned out down to the last placement card by the time they were twelve. Bonnie not having done so, and especially her attitude that getting married was neither-here-nor-there refreshed him, and exasperated him at the same time.

"Why?" he asked, now intrigued.

"Um…" she began. He could already tell she was about to say things she didn't like saying. "I don't know. Seems like every time I've met someone I liked…they died. Or they were in constant danger. I guess I've never had a chance to…to start thinking about that."

He knew he was supposed to sputter out some kind of empathetic blanket statement to relieve her from saying anything more and simultaneously welcome her to speak freely. But he didn't want to hear about anyone else she might've liked. They were gone and no longer a problem.

"You have a chance now," he offered. "No death or danger here. What kind of wedding would you have, you know, if you had free range of the world with all the details you could ask for. _Dream wedding. No limits. Go_."

Her brows were beginning to narrow at him, her face turning slightly so she could view him only out of the corners of her eyes. Such skepticism. So she wouldn't have a chance to rip the conversation to shreds, he added, "Hypothetically, of course."

Tamed, she sighed. "Of course." And looked down at her food, digesting his words more than it.

" _Go_ ," he repeated.

"Magic out in the open," she said first. "The truth about my family and…what I am…was kept from me for too long, and I don't want the beginning of a new life to start with anything in the dark."

"So in your ideal scenario the groom is also a witch."

He was pushing it, he knew. Pushing it so hard.

"Yeah," she nodded, smiling off to the side of her mouth. "And Mystic Falls is home to me, you know, I honestly wouldn't have minded getting married there. And I might've stayed too. After college, of course."

"You're speaking in past tense."

"Yeah?"

"Just saying, it's a dream scenario. Could still happen."

"But—"

"No buts. Just dreams. You were saying?"

"Kai…"

"What kind of theme would you go with? Vintage? Costume? Rustic?" Bonnie stared at him, but he kept going. "What time of year? Nevermind, don't answer that, you strike me as a fall kind of girl, you'd have a fall wedding, wouldn't you? Close to Halloween?"

"You're weirdly into this," she said, and he could tell she was trying not to smile.

"I just have a lot of wedding experience."

"From your four ex-wives?"

"Yeah, from them," he laughed. It sounded too genuine for comfort and he had to clear his throat. She was doing something to him. More than just joking with him. He felt her magic hanging around the room, opening wide, encasing the both of them in a warm, cozy bubble. She was comfortable.

He couldn't ignore how much he wanted to lean forward and kiss her. Maybe, for the sake of plans, he shouldn't ignore it. But it would knock his very wobbly switch one way or the other. He resisted.

"A fall wedding sounds nice." She sounded convinced. "I'd want an outside wedding but summer is hot, winter is cold, and spring as a season just doesn't feel like it used to." Her eyes began drifting upward into the back of her imagination. Kai looked on curiously. "But buttercups. I'd want baby's breath and buttercups for floral arrangements. Tea for drinks, no booze. Grilled chicken. Yellow rice. A big, fat chocolate cake." Kai could picture it all, mesmerized himself by her idea of perfect wedding food. "Chalkboards…I don't know why, they're just atmospheric. Dusk, but at the time of month when you can really see the moon in the daytime. A kissing booth, that I would hire Matt to sit in," she giggled, her eyes starting to shine, and her voice cracked when she emphasized, "I'd want all my friends there. But…no vampires."

"No vampires," he couldn't help but breathe, unable to find his voice and trying so hard to sound indifferent. "Why not?"

"You're kidding, right?"

He shook his head, wanting, needing, to know.

"Everything was fine until they came back to town. I've tried not to think about how life would have turned out if they never did, over the years, after Elena fell in love with Stefan, and then Damon, and I knew we'd never get rid of them. But sometimes thoughts just slip in… I hate them."

Kai felt— _felt_ , it infuriated him to realize he was feeling something—pain. He was going to need a mantra for this shit if it wasn't going to stop.

"I'm sorry," he said. And kicked himself.

"You're what?"

"I'm—nothing. Let's not talk about vampires. I hate them too, ugh so much, and—"

"You are one," she reminded.

"Half," he insisted. She gave him a set smile.

"Sure. With one hundred percent all the features of a vampire."

"And one thousand percent all the features of a witch."

"You know what, it doesn't matter anyway. You're whatever the hell you are, I'm stuck here, I'm never going to—"

"Marry me."

For a second, time stopped. His heart hung on the end of a beat and stilled for what felt like eternity, Bonnie's mouth half open and her eyes locked on him in a distinctly accusatory expression, a chunk of zucchini stuck tauntingly at the end of her fork where it froze on its way to her mouth, and he could hear her heart flume through his ears as his warning that time was about to continue.

She laughed. Her fork delivered food to mouth, returned to her plat and she left it there to wipe her mouth with a napkin and it looked like she was about to get up. _It's a game_ , he assured himself, _a game_ , _stop hurting_. He had blurted it, it wasn't right, didn't know what he was doing or how to fix it. He watched her slide off her stool, felt her brush past him on her way to the sink, heard her dishes clatter carelessly, the water running.

"Bonnie," he said over the noise. She turned, doe-eyed, possibly traumatized in secret by the two words she thought were a joke. "I'm serious."

The water was turned off. She crossed her arms. As if planning this retort from the beginning of the conversation just in case she would need it, she said with humbling and endearing sass, "Just what the fuck do you think I'm gonna say to that? Look at you, no emotions," she spat. "Look at me! I'm a mess! We're in a fucking prison world, that you made for me, kidnapped me out of my life and stuck me here, with you, so you can just keep playing with me for longer than either of us are meant to live, so you can have it your way, because you get what you want. I'm not going to marry you, _Malachai_ , you don't even have a goddamn ring!"

She said his full name with complete disgust. He couldn't help but gush. She was fuming and out of breath from her rant.

"So that's a No?" he asked. "Just clarifying."

She looked like she was about to kill him. It was an obvious strain on her to calmly reply, "That's a No."

"Because I can get a ring."

"No."

"And I know you're probably weirded out by the whole Gemini coven slash Bennett family merge thing, but I'm telling you, it happens. Covens blend all the time, marriage is historically the best alliance tool."

"No."

"Our coven would be so powerful."

"No," she deepened her voice and started walking toward him with her arms and hands ready to air-strangle him. "Why? Why do you even want this?"

Thinking he'd take his chances, he didn't back away from her threatening advance.

"I dunno. What you said back in New York got me thinking. I can't shirk my responsibilities just because I'm here and can't feel anything. I'm the leader of the coven now, I've wanted this for my entire miserable existence and I finally got it. I should probably not suck at it, right?"

"Your whole coven's dead, Kai. It doesn't matter anymore."

"But it does, Bonnie. I still have Gemini blood running through my veins and it's telling me to rebuild."

"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking."

"I think I am."

"Kai."

"Bonnie."

"No! I don't know what other kinds of fucked up practices your coven used but I was raised to marry for love, if at all, thank you very much."

"Your point?"

She turned unexpectedly somber on him. "You and I don't…" she trailed off, seemingly uncertain which words to use, but he tended to hope it was the truth in them she wasn't sure of. "This isn't love."

He pursed his lips to hold back a legion of offhand responses. Dare he organize them all and break it down for her?

Kai cracked his knuckles, and his neck, then returned his gaze to her and took a step forward, intending to keep stepping forward until he cornered her against the refrigerator and could breathe her breath, smell her blood— _no_. He gritted his teeth, mentally coaching his fangs to keep inside and those annoying veins not to show, his predatory instincts not to be fooled while he approached her very much like a predator would.

"Bonnie," he began, feeling his gums ache, his teeth begging to show off for the frustration he started to feel. "I watched you for months before you even knew I was there and I can't describe to you how satisfying it was the first time you looked at me. You were mad, and you were ready to kill me, but I planned for that. Come to find out you'd try to kill me more than once, more than twice." His heart banged against his ribs and he was beginning to get the sense that this moment was getting too real. "You pissed me off. And you amazed me. And you bet your juicy ass I enjoyed making you suffer for that. But ever since I got empathy all I can think about is you. Because you are the only person who could ever, even before the merge, make me feel a thing. Since you looked at me that first time you have been my fucking disease, Bonnie Bennett. I didn't just bring you here to punish you, and I'm not here with you because I like you. I _don't_ like you."

He was going to say it. Damn everything. She already looked mortified. Maybe she could feel it coming.

"I know I have no merit right now because the empathy is supposed to be off…"

Her back bumped into the fridge and Kai took a second to tighten his fists against it on either side of her waist. The hunger was boiling in his throat, but he swallowed it back. It could wait its turn.

"Please believe me because it's fucking excruciating how much I…" he looked broodingly into her eyes and she, fossilized with what looked like fear, into his. "…love you."

* * *

"This isn't real," Bonnie said, looking down, wherever she could to escape making eye contact with him again. She couldn't breathe. Maybe if she went catatonic he would let go of her and she could run to her room, where she belonged, where this conversation couldn't happen. Because it shouldn't be allowed to happen. It was wrong. A psychotic Gemini outcast and a well-rounded, led-astray, good Bennett. They were literally a match made in hell.

"Why not? Because you don't want it to be?"

She was feeling all the things he was trying to make her feel, and more.

"Because it's wrong."

"Says who?"

"Everyone, if anyone knew."

"What do _you_ say?"

"Do these people have any vodka?" She broke out of his cage and opened up the nearest cabinet.

"No, I—Bonnie, you can't just drink your thoughts and feelings away."

"Why not?" she snapped and slammed the vodka-void cabinet. But she wasn't done looking. They had to have alcohol, somewhere, any kind. "You sent yours away with the flip of a switch." She talked a mile a minute while she opened more cabinets, rummaged and slammed them all. "I wish it were that easy for me. I wish I could just turn it all off. No guilt, no grief, no gnawing need to fill this hole in my heart with something that doesn't and shouldn't exist."

"I may be comfortably numb right now but I can still tell when the things you're saying would probably hurt."

For a second she stopped searching to hold herself steady against the countertop and hood her eyes with her hand, shaking so bad for liquor to numb the anxiety swelling past the point of manageable.

"Kai," she whimpered. "Why did you have to turn it off?"

"Does it make a difference?"

"Yes," she breathed, feeling the water in her eyes press harder.

"I think you love me back either way."

The sound of the slap blared against the cabinets, rattling all the dishes inside them. Something somewhere broke. That was the magic of a witch's rage.

With hostilely slow motion, he turned his reddened face back to her with imminent vindication darkening his expression. Just this face was enough confirmation that was nowhere near loving her.

He rebounded with a siphon, locking his hands around her upper arms and she felt her magic ooze out. She yelled in agony, less for the pain than the insufferable truth, that time after time he could do this to her. When he let go, she was unable to give him an aneurysm. So she shoved him as hard as she could. In some kind of temporary forgetfulness that he had the strength of an immortal, he let her aggression move his body, and he stumbled back against the opposite countertop. He glared at her and held his hand out. It confused her at first; then a glass ball flew past her face, magnetized to his palm. His fingers tightened around it. He was heaving in wrath, ominous glints dancing from eye to eye.

"You tried to leave me again. Said this thing was a dud…" He smiled upon the ascendant in worship as he turned it in his hand. "I've gotta hand it to me," he laughed, "I'm pretty fucking good."

Bonnie scowled, sensing another reveal was on its way. Only she wasn't sure if he would keep his head long enough to say it.

"We might need Bennett blood to make the spell work," he continued, shifting his loving gaze from the ascendant to her eyes, "But you were missing the Parker blood that makes the ascendant work."

His fingers, clutching the bane of her existence, turned white. And the ascendant, more beautiful than she had ever given it or him credit for, burst into a hundred fragments. The glass sprayed the floor, the metal parts clattered, her jaw followed. There was only a hint of pride in his expression.

She fled and he didn't follow.

* * *

Bonnie stayed awake much later than she should have. The moon was well into its journey across the sky and the breeze, so cold from having been without the sun for hours, drifted in through the open window. It carried the scents of the flowers outside and it was lovely, despite how it made her shiver and cling to the covers. She found herself wishing she owned actual pajamas, not just the t-shirt and panties she was used to.

She tried to sleep…tried. But try as she might, she couldn't stop seething with the desire to rip Kai's smirking face off of his head for admitting that all this time there really was a way out, and then literally shattering the possibility right after. Almost worse, she couldn't shake the image of herself in a white dress, standing at an altar with the cocky sociopathic Heretic in jeans and Converse shoes.

 _Marry me_. She scoffed out loud even though the conversation was hours ago. He was nuts for having the gall to ask, to think he had a chance in _any_ dimension that she would say yes. After all he'd done.

And it didn't completely answer for their pit-stop in Portland. What was he looking for there, a cool centerpiece spell?

He thought he loved her. Despite how tempted she was to believe his convincing little monologue, she couldn't let herself. Even if it was true and Kai Parker somehow learned what it felt like to love, he wouldn't say it out loud. She remembered getting drunk alone at the Mystic Grill when he was gone, thinking that he liked her and wondering if he knew it. It wasn't even that long ago. How far he had come, or was pretending to.

His words replayed over and over in her mind. She could still hear them, in his voice, in her ears. Her chest hurt, like her heart was being scoured out. _Marry me. Marry me. Marry me_. But her heart kept beating, no matter how the pain worsened, and harder with deeper dubs _._ _Marry me_. It was disgusting.

What a horrible husband Kai would make. But in some ways, she couldn't deny that he was right. She was a powerful witch, and he proved himself powerful as well after gaining his own magic to wield. And what Bennetts were left in her life to disapprove? What people in general were around to think anything at all? They were both dead to everyone they knew. Bennett and Parker blood were free to blend and the witching world would be none the wiser.

Bonnie took a moment to think about what that meant.

Then she thought about the veins in his hand when he crushed the ascendant. Long blue lines that bulged up from his skin in rage, in strength. It was all for her and the frustration she caused him. She thought back to the glimpse of his teeth she had caught when he was glaring and the glass was breaking. His sneer. His eyes, blackening with probable thirst he must've been managing in secret. He hadn't fed for a while. Every time she felt his hunger burrow into the way he carried his magic, she could also feel her skin tightening at the very memory of that pain, of his fangs tearing into her while his tongue lapped. But she missed it. God, just for the surrender, how she missed weakening into his fevered embrace while her essence, at her expense, nourished him. Unexpectedly her hipbones began to ache and the burning coned downward.

"Fuck you," she whispered, feeling helpless. His effect on her was maddening.

Bonnie rolled onto her stomach and shouldered her blanket all the way up. She wished she had vodka to lower her inhibitions and make her feel less guilty about this but she needed something to exhaust her physically as much as her thoughts did mentally. She let her hand explore the length of bed from head to hip until she brushed herself, _there_. And found that her panties were soaked.

He ruined her. He ruined her. He ruined her.

Unable to even think herself out of it she splayed her fingers beneath the lace band of her panties. Intrusive thoughts of his angrier expressions encouraged. Her middle finger trembled its way over her arching clit and pictured the shitty little smile on his face every time he siphoned from her. She shook and sighed between her chattering teeth. Her fingertip separated her lips and dipped. She thought of the way his breath sounded when she was close enough to hear it…his jawline, stubble or not…his shoulders, dripping from the shower like that night in Portland…his cock. Her finger slid. She moaned.

"Bastard," her breath seemed to say. She hiked her knee up, hearing the cotton sheet rustle beneath her urgency. Poising her hand, she lowered her body. If she breathed right and listened to herself, she could forget that it was all her.

A few minutes passed. She was wet beyond belief, which was consistent with any of the last times she touched herself and thought of him. But she wasn't getting anywhere. Normally with so much to work with she didn't have enough time to draw out before landing at a hard climax. But this was infuriating. Because something better than her short, thin finger was right down the hall and her body knew it. This wasn't enough, but it needed to be. She groaned in frustration.

"Need help?" Kai's voice offered, out of nowhere, innocently.


	17. Chapter 17

She nearly busted her skull on the headboard with how hard she jolted.

At the very least there would be a sizable bump, and a headache. Bonnie scrambled to normalize her position in bed, withdraw her stiff hand from her starving sex and rest it sneakily, discreetly, beside her hip, wet fingertips sticking to the sheet that covered her. She kept her head down, not to justify his intrusion with a look up or even a greeting. He wasn't currently worth her hello. But his presence was felt in provocatively energetic waves. His magic was molesting.

"Don't try to play it off, Bon. I know you were clubbing the clam."

Bonnie had to scoff in order to stifle hard laughter he didn't deserve to hear.

"No?" he continued, "You mean to tell me you weren't poking the flounder just now? You weren't just giving the old two finger salute? Polishing the pearl? Spelunking the cave? Punching Jerry Garcia in the face?"

"Ew!" she yelled, grabbing a pillow and hurling it back at him. He caught it with ease and tossed it aside.

"Because, from the other room, it sounded to me like you were dialing on your little pink telephone."

Bonnie buried her face in another pillow and wished him away but felt him drawing nearer, his rambling voice sounding just louder enough to drag her over the edge of self-control. She heard him inhale through his nose and let it out in a sigh.

"It's subtle," he said, "It's not abrasive or anything, but there's this scent you have, when you're—you know—wet. It's like when I smell blood the vampire part of me is like ' _yes_!' but when I can smell your lady-landing, the human part of me is like ' _fuck yes_.' And being half vamp, well, I don't have to be that far to smell how turned on you are right now."

The weight in the bed changed at her right foot…he was climbing in. He moved on his hands and knees to support himself above her back and she could feel her face heating, all her skin crawling with confusion. Should she hit him with a crippling aneurysm, beat him to death without magic, or take advantage of his body? She felt his knees indenting the bed at each of her hips, his hands resting at each of her shoulders, his breath on the back of her head. It felt dangerously like a power-play and she was reminded of the time he jumped into the Camaro behind her, wrapping his arms around her, shushing her, trapping her. This time, though it mocked the last time, she didn't feel helpless. And she didn't feel trapped. Nor did she feel that Kai's intention was to trap her, at least not in this moment, in this way. But even if she was wrong…desire, too, waited wickedly in her belly.

"There's just one thing," he kept on, "that I need to know. Call it my inane curiosity. Maybe you can clear it up… What the hell has got you so hot and bothered right now? I'm just dying to figure you out, but don't," he started his next thought and paused to focus on worming his hand underneath the sheet, and he trailed his fingers delicately down her arm until finding her wet hand before going on, "Don't stop for me."

His hand ushered hers back to the hollow between her hips and the mattress.

"Tell me," his voice softened as he lowered his head so he was practically breathing through her hair. "What makes you wet? Is it the idea of walking down a deserted aisle with me?"

Bonnie's heart thumped and she hated knowing he could feel that, and hear that, and that it probably hungered him as much as it satisfied him.

"In a pretty Parisian white dress…?" he urged.

Under the covers, his hand, just big enough to cradle the back of hers in his palm, clamped on, his fingers locking between each of her knuckles to guide it back to her panties.

"Or is it the idea of the things I'd say to you at an altar…things no one has ever said to you before…"

"Shut up," she growled against the pillow, "You don't know."

Just for that, he pushed their hands against her pubic bone, rough enough to feel like a punishment and strategic enough to feel like a reward.

"Does it make you wet to think that the whole ' _til death do us part_ ' thing doesn't apply to us?"

She could feel him smiling into her hair, his arrogance. He started moving her hand against the lace of her panties. It tickled and scratched across her palm.

"Not even death can part us, Bon. Not here."

She bared her teeth against her pillow as his grip on her hand tightened. Reacting to him, she gripped her own cunt. Her fingernails dug into her bottom, labial folds bunched into her knuckles and her clit pleaded against the lace, and the digging heel of her hand.

"Did it turn you on to find out I'm in love with you?"

Their hands found their way beneath the lace and Kai's middle finger pressed her middle finger into the center of her folds and her mouth opened without her permission.

"Or to find out that you had a way to get out of here and I destroyed it?"

He began working her finger in, moving his hand in small circles so hers would do the same.

"Do you know why I destroyed it? I don't want to lose you, Bonnie. You're all I have, and I _will_ have you."

 _Enough_.

With or without his _help_ , her finger was too small for the job she wanted done. She pulled her hand out of herself, out of his grip and reached over her shoulder to grab a fistful of his hair. It was slightly damp from a shower she'd heard him take a little earlier. She could smell rosemary from the shampoo he used.

He grunted as she pulled his hair, her grip snaring with no intention of letting go, but he learned. His head lowered into the crook of her shoulder, his body following until his front aligned with her back and she could feel him getting hard against her butt.

"I guess I should tell you the other reason I asked you to marry me," he went on tightly between his gritting teeth at the pain she was causing him. His finger continued without her, finding its way in while his knuckle balanced on her clit.

"Proposing was kind of a preface, to be honest."

Bonnie could feel his fingertip reaching deep, curling as he pulled slightly out and straightening as he pushed back in. He developed a rhythm and went with it as he talked.

"So in Portland I found this really cool spell, not a hundred percent what I was hoping to find but it should do the trick. Found it in my dad's grimoire, surprise, surprise. I think it was like a backup plan sort of thing, in case he ever felt threatened or worried…"

She wished he'd shut up and at the same time wanted him to keep talking because the sound of his voice only seemed to intensify the honestly, awfully, embarrassingly _good_ feeling enveloping her lower body.

"First step was to use the ascendant to join me in my little Hell, temporarily of course. Second step, render me unconscious or otherwise debilitated so he could perform this cute little spell that would unbind my body from the May 10th 1994 time loop, or in other words, make me killable."

She gasped at his words and at the pressure he applied to her clit without warning.

He laughed, "Oh, hush, Bon. Take a chill pill. It's okay. So the spell…"

She listened intently, though concentration was getting difficult. Her body melded around his pacing finger and she thought she could feel every curve in the spiral of his fingertip ribbing on her flesh.

"I promise not to do it without your consent, because we have all the time in the world and I know you'll change your mind eventually, so be grateful I'm giving you time… Um, neat thing about it is _when_ I use it on you, your gorgeous bod will become, like I said, unbound from our lovely little groundhog day here. Nothing bad will happen. Just means you'd be susceptible to physical changes, little ones, like hair and nail growth, hormone cycles, and aging, but of course I'd find a counter spell before that ever happened. I mean, fuck if I have to live with you being cranky _and_ senile. You would also be able to die, but I wouldn't let that happen either. No…I was thinking more along the lines of cooking you another nice dinner."

Where was this going? Bonnie tuned in and out of his blathering, becoming more and less aware of trivial surroundings in intervals. Like the mixing scents of flowers on the draft and Kai's clean hair, his minty breath coasting the side of her face and the lily eau de toilette she'd sprayed on the pillows, the scent of her sex he so liked drifting up the sheets, and the sound of Kai inhaling through his nose every time he stopped gabbing to take a breath. He exhaled headily and whether or not he was aware, it ramped up an impulse she bit back, because butting him off and taking matters into her own hands, or more literally taking his pants into her hands and throwing them out the window and riding him without further ado, would most likely delay the evil plan she was finally about to hear.

So she gently rode his hand and waited in a throng of moans.

"We'll listen to some romantic music, your choice. Maybe slow dance a little bit afterward. Then we'd head upstairs…take each other's clothes off…I guess technically we don't have to get married if you really don't want to, people do it all the time and we've already been to funky town and back twice so what's another thousand times? I mean, I like it and I want to put a ring on it, but it's half your decision and I can respect that. Anyway, where was I?"

His habitual tangents, she could endure them. She could tolerate him, and this, his teasing, this method he chose, she could bear it maybe longer than she thought possible, because every breath he took warmed her, and every word he spoke excited her as it vibrated from his chest into hers through her back.

"…We could take a bubble bath if that appeals to you, and shit, I'll even sprinkle the water with rose petals because I know you'd like that foofy romantic crap…"

She thought she could feel his heart pounding into her vertebrae the deeper he walked them into this verbal fantasy.

"I'll dry you off, carry you to bed…"

Undeniable was the sensation that even though his hand was moving in her, switching and adding fingers every few beats so there was sometimes one, sometimes two, sometimes three fingers stretching her apart, and even though she was thrusting her hips in collaboration, Kai's hips started to thrust as well. The hardness she felt a moment ago had matured into a rock-hard limb, seeking attention. It seemed strategic that he lined his length up between her cheeks, over the sheet, as he humped her. His voice slowed and quieted to a low rumble.

"…lay you down…we can take it slow, I'll be gentle…for the first few minutes…but once we get going..."

His lashes, against her temple, fluttered and she knew he'd closed his eyes, maybe to reserve his senses for pleasure. Something was coming.

"…if what you say is true about that hybrid in New Orleans…"

Bonnie felt a cold wave flush through her body…

"…if I fuck you hard enough…"

…and all her hair raise on end…

"…if I fuck you deep enough…"

…and heat rebounding in a ripple…

"…and I come inside you…"

…and his finger hurrying now, begging…

"…Bonnie…"

…and gravity dwindling to the sound of her name in his moan…

"…let's get you pregnant."

* * *

She came harder than he could've expected.

He jammed two fingers as deep into her as he could to feel the extent of her hole squeezing him. He used his nose to brush her hair out of both of their faces and breathed and pressed his lips into her clammy cheek. Her howl shook the air and successfully set him off on his own climax.

He came in his sweatpants.

When he was done grunting in her ear and her whimpers turned to pants, he pulled his hand out, making sure to drag a trail of her own sap against her belly before he put his fingers in his mouth one by one and sucked off the rest. With nothing between her body and the mattress, she collapsed beneath him and he rolled to her side, winking at her when she noticed him with his pinky in his mouth.

She looked, in more ways than one, done.

Kai smirked, wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and said, "I'll leave you to your thoughts," and did so.

* * *

The next morning, he woke up to the rustling sounds of her getting ready for the day, then the creaks in the spiral staircase and a very dedicated sigh just before the sound of the front door closing. He whizzed out of bed and to the bedroom window, in time to catch her looking up at him from the cobblestone steps. She didn't run away, or look away, before pressing her lips into a reassuring but sorry smile. She knew damn well he would feel suspicious; maybe that was why instead of taking the car, she was wearing a pair of attractively hint-of-nineties hiking boots.

He found a floral stationary card standing up on the kitchen counter. If he wasn't mistaken, it had been perfumed. What was she trying to prove?

He never knew that a person's handwriting could make him feel anything, but in her simple yet ridiculously pretty handwriting, the note read:

 _I need time, but I'll come back_. _–_ _B_

He caught himself sighing wistfully. _But how much time?_ he wondered, and looked longingly in the direction he saw her last. He wanted to know where she was going, what she was thinking, whether she remembered to bring her iPod to keep herself entertained and sane with the sounds of other voices. Would she be back in time for dinner? What would she want for dinner? Should he cook for two, or for one?

His Bonnie, walking around alone in unfamiliar territory. What if she got lost?

Three hours after she left, he called her cellphone just to check in. It rang upstairs. She had left it behind.

Six hours after she left, she hadn't returned. But it was still midday.

By evening, she was still absent.

So he paced. He ate a muffin. He threw a chair. He'd been too forward the night before, too assertive, he knew it. He ruined it.

He tore back and forth in his mind, wishing he had just stayed in her room so the minute she woke up and tried to leave, he could've tied her to the bed and made her think whatever thinking she needed to do right there where she couldn't make him worry so much. He ran his hands through his hair, smoothed them obsessively down his face. He could still smell her on his fingers.

"Where the hell are you?" he groaned. He waited in front of the house. He listened for whispers of whips of her hair in the wind, echoes of her footsteps. His magic spread around him in an anxious ring, his own personal storm cloud raining over his head. It was so heavy without hers to bring him balance. So beastly without hers to soothe it.

He waited all through the night, outside. When she wasn't there for breakfast, he decided to try a locator spell. It didn't work. But he could feel her, wherever she was. She was too far to sniff out but if he separated all his fingers, closed his eyes and concentrated…he could feel her out there. Something about the distant hum of her magic racked him with apprehension. She was lost.

Decidedly he walked over to her garden and picked a daisy. He held it in the palm of his hand, studying it for a moment, before closing his other hand over it. He left a small opening between his thumbs and brought it close to his lips, breathing in the pollen. Into the darkness and the dying flower, he whispered a spell.

* * *

In her post-orgasm sleep, she dreamed. She dreamed the very kind of scenario she'd been drinking herself extra drunk to avoid.

This time, when Damon welcomed her into her grandmother's house, he was quick to grab hold of her arm. Out of the long white sheets billowing down from the ceiling, Elena emerged to grab Bonnie's other arm, and the two proceeded to drag her into the kitchen. She found that she could not scream, and she could not make her legs kick hard enough to make a difference.

Sure enough, her Grams waited at the kitchen table, same as before, drinking from a cup of tea. She didn't acknowledge Damon or Elena, but after they had forced Bonnie into a chair and disappeared, Grams said, "Don't mind them. They're just the agents of your subconscious." And though it was a dream, Bonnie was able to understand that. She was able to remember, however vaguely through the layers of consciousness she was buried beneath, that she'd heard those words before. _An agent of your subconscious_. She remembered them in Kai's voice, and the instant he arrived in her thoughts, Grams snapped her out of them.

"It's good to be seen by you, sugar," she said lightly with a crinkly smile. Did that mean she was watching over her? But how, from Oblivion?

"I'm sorry," Bonnie blurted, not knowing or caring why those were the words to come out of her mouth.

"I hope you're not planning on marrying that boy," she warned, still smiling but in a way that made Bonnie think she could read her thoughts. It didn't occur to her that Grams herself was just a thought; she knew they were in her head, but Grams seemed just as much a projection of something real.

"Never." Bonnie felt sure of her answer, but caught herself looking down. There was a pretty, floral mug of tea on the table in front of her. Something that actually existed in her grandmother's cabinets, held firmly enough in her memories to appear to her in dreams.

"People change their minds. We're witches, honey, but we're still human."

Bonnie looked up to watch Grams tighten her boney fingers around her tea and take a sip, her eyes deep, shining, looking back at Bonnie over the rim of her mug.

"He's a sociopath," Bonnie reminded.

"I'm proud of you for staying strong, baby. Not every girl can say no to a good-looking man."

"He's a witch. That's all I respect about him."

Grams tipped her head to the side in slight disagreement.

"He's a Heretic. By definition, what he is defies nature, defies what is right. He may have the powers of a witch and the blood of a witch family, but he's a vampire now. He's not one of us, Bonnie. He never has been."

"I know," Bonnie said, looking down again at her tea. And she did know. Kai was different.

"I always told you we protect our own." The woman leaned forward and arrested Bonnie's attention with an earnest gleam to her smile. "That means you need to protect yourself. I know that boy. He is nothing but a danger to you. Was from the start."

Her grip tightened around her cup again and Bonnie sensed a big was on its way.

"Now, this is no topic to discuss over tea but I think it's high time you killed him for good."

"What?" Bonnie asked, feeling winded. When she would wake up, she wouldn't recall ever having felt something so physical in a dream.

"You heard me," Grams said, her eyebrows sharp and her tone still nothing but kind.

"I can't."

"You can, and you need to. It's your only way out, baby."

"It'll kill me."

The old woman shook her head and grinned toothily, "Now we always figure something out about that, don't we? I've begun to think you're no less immortal than those vampires you hang around with." She laughed, her eyes twinkling the way Bonnie was used to, making her feel safe, protected… Grams' eyes twinkled like she knew something Bonnie didn't. "Vampires," she said with a tsk, "They're only a burden on us witches, Bonnie."

"I know firsthand."

"I'm just so glad you've managed to survive with that Parker child being one of them, as if his mind wasn't enough of a problem."

"Grams…"

"Yes?" Her grandmother waited a brief minute for Bonnie to find the words. She glanced nervously out the kitchen window and back to urge, "Go on, speak up"

"He loves me."

Grams' smile still didn't falter. "I heard."

"You don't believe it," Bonnie observed.

"I believe what I see, not what I hear. And I see him, day after day, bringing my granddaughter pain."

Bonnie shook her head, "He can't hurt me." Her voice sounded small. Water filled her eyes.

"What's the matter?"

"I just wish you could see through my eyes the way he looks at me. I know there's a lot wrong with him but…there's something right with him, too. I can't kill him. I've tried so many times we must be even."

Her grandmother's disbelief was the point where she felt herself slipping out of her chair, but instead of hitting the kitchen floor she hit her bed.

* * *

 _There has to be another way_ , she thought, still feeling panic in her chest from the advice she was given by an agent of her subconscious. It was only a matter of time before the feeling of the dream slipped out of her bones and she could calm down, not feeling like she actually needed to kill Kai just because her Grams told her to, and not believing that it was her actual grandmother in her head. It was all just dream drivel, the garbage piling up in her untended mind, pure brain baloney.

But still.

Without wasting any more time, she put on some jean shorts and a blouse, and good walking shoes. She needed air. She needed space. She needed solitude, that old, backbiting friend.

So she left. She didn't know where she was going. There was no plan. But she knew, more certainly than her need for the space she was leaving to get, that she missed him already. Terrifyingly, when she looked back and saw him leaning at the window, and saw a hint of betrayal in his dark eyes, and in his frown, and his hand hanging onto the windowsill twitch with the impulse to leap out and get her…she was sorry. In her mind she urged him to stay calm. To trust her.

She stopped half an hour down the road to use a Gemini cloaking spell on herself. She didn't want to be found until she was ready. The perfect amount of time away, long enough to clear her mind and short enough not to become desperate for her partner in crime, was a balance which perfecting was vital. Then she would feel like herself. She was acting like he hadn't spitefully destroyed the ascendant in a rage to make some kind of point to her. As if he wasn't declaring love just to breed her for the longevity of his stupid, fucked up coven.

Foolishly, she dared to imagine if he meant any of it. _Marry me_. Or… _it's fucking excruciating how much I love you_. As things stood, she was not devoted to him. They owed each other nothing but the next hit, or the next apology, and the vicious cycle of their dynamic would continue that way. But what if… Her heart thumped even harder to think it but, what if there was devotion? If she married him, if vows were implemented to instead work together and not against each other, would anything change?

She groaned. It was as simple as a truce. The same thing she offered him over the first Thanksgiving dinner they shared. It didn't work out then, of course, but this time she had no intention to split the world in half and go separate ways. But then a question was begged: why not just marry him? She wanted to stick together, she was growing increasingly interested in a physical relationship with him, and for all the hatred inside her she had also gotten used to his personality. Lately, she even liked it. And him. And being around him. Even when he wasn't himself. Even when he _was_.

And that's what this was about. She, of all people, saw someone worth saving when she looked at him. It just took her a few extra fights to realize that not all hope was lost. She missed empathetic Kai with a passion she couldn't analyze, or wasn't ready to, and she couldn't abandon him. Despite what her internal projection of Grams had to say about Kai, he was her favorite problem. Even if she was raised not to believe in fixing broken men, it seemed she had a little more rebelling to do. Besides, she had less of a sense that she needed to fix him; without a doubt, she needed to break him.

She grew hungry in the afternoon and broke into a residence that wasn't nearly as impressive as the one she and Kai settled in. She made herself a sandwich, ate in silence, enjoyed the shade. She used little spells here and there to lift her mood; here to perk up a wilting daffodil, there to mend a crack in a stranger's picture frame, here to move a needle onto a record for music, there to float all twelve bottle of Heineken from the fridge into a backpack before she moved on.

Later she came across a carnival. It gave Bonnie the feeling that it had been abandoned in the real world but she knew that was just the desolation of this one. Either way, she couldn't just walk by it. She tried a spell on the Ferris wheel to make it run for her. She ate cotton candy and kettle corn. She played a shooting game and wouldn't take the stuffed giraffe prize until she nailed every target. She wandered fearlessly through a mirror maze, coming across one that exaggerated her middle. A short-lived fantasy of growing Kai's seed in her belly played out.

The fantasy was easily explored due to her confidence that it would not happen.

She imagined looking down at her swollen stomach, knowing it was a baby. Kai's baby. It was both _ugh_ and _aww_ in her mind; she couldn't make it up. Shopping for maternity clothes in Paris would be a must. As would reading all the books, because neither of them had legitimate medical experience. _God, I would die in childbirth_ , she thought. Then she remembered he had vampire blood to heal her. But still. She didn't know the first thing about parenting and she was less than even remotely prepared to tackle raising a child, or children, as she considered the Parker bloodline's tendency toward twins.

She had to physically brush the fantasy off of her body and move onto a different mirror. There was no way she would do _that_ , with _him_ , and _here_. Or anywhere, with anyone, anytime soon.

Then an idea struck her like lightning.

Goosebumps scuttled across her body and she had to stand still and reconsider herself.

It was crazy. But possible.

She found her way out of the mirror maze and skipped back in the direction she came from, not realizing until dark that she wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings when she left. She didn't know where she was or where she needed to go to find her way back to the cottage.

Anxiety surrounded where she'd sleep or how she would feel okay with the _prison world spooks_. Preferring to risk getting sick from exposure than getting scared in an empty house all alone, Bonnie curled up in the grass at the base of a tree. She comforted herself with reminders that there weren't bugs in this world, and that it wouldn't be the first time she woke up on the ground outside. The summer night was cool and a stream rushed nearby. She could hear it washing through the earth, and twigs up in the trees brushing against each other in the breeze, the leaves hissing. It was hard not to feel connected and serene; a perfect environment to think up the perfect spell.

* * *

The next morning, it was a singing bird that alerted Bonnie she had overslept.

Having been without such a sound for so long, she bolted awake. Her eyes darted around to find a yellow finch, perched on the nearest branch and watching her intently with small black eyes.

"What?" Bonnie asked out loud, incredulously and to no one, wondering if this was another dream.

The finch chirped.

A pleasantly surprised, "Hi!" was the next logical thing to Bonnie, and in response the bird flitted to another branch yards away. But it still looked at her. When she didn't move, it began chirruping.

"Okay, bird," she said, rolling her eyes. It chirruped louder, cocking its head anxiously. Bonnie got to her feet and brushed the dirt and grass off of her legs. Her skin felt rough from being out in the open air all night. She slung her beer-weighted backpack over her shoulder and walked toward the finch, which flitted to a farther branch.

Desperate to find out why there was a finch in an otherwise lifeless world, Bonnie tried to keep up with it. To her amusement, the finch never flew away but simply kept its distance, leading Bonnie deeper and deeper through the woods. In the real world, she might have known better than to follow a strangely behaving animal into dense forest, but Bonnie didn't believe the bird to be an omen. How could it be?

A mere forty five minutes later, the finch led her to a clearing. In the distance, a dirt road wound and between fields of flowers, her cottage sat. Her little breather from Kai had successfully allowed her to come up with a final plan, but after an unexpected campout, _home_ was a welcome sight. Bonnie took a deep breath, realizing that home was _him_ more than it was the house. She was positively warmed in her heart that a bird out of nowhere led her safely back to him. She couldn't wait to show him.

Bonnie followed the finch up to the dirt driveway, where it soared suddenly up into the air, seemed to alter its form and fell loosely to the ground.

"No!" she yelped, running to where it had fallen.

She kneeled in the dirt but there was no bird; just a withered daisy.

When she looked up, she saw Kai sitting on the front steps, twiddling another picked daisy in his hands, watching her.

"How'd you do that?" she asked, knowing then that it was Kai who sent the bird to find her. It occurred to her to feel a little bit dumb for thinking there was an actual animal, and not an enchantment. "How'd you know I was lost?"

He shrugged, his lips stuck in a firm line. "I just felt it."

"Thanks. …Sorry." She laughed to herself and muttered, "I was planning on being back in time for dinner, but…"

"Where'd you go?" he asked, flicking the daisy in his hands back into the garden. It irritated Bonnie to see the picked daisy caught on the tops of the healthy ones.

She looked to the road behind her and pointed with her thumb, "There's a carnival out there. Somewhere. I have a terrible sense of direction, apparently, so I probably couldn't take us back to it. Here," she stopped, letting her backpack slide off and unzipping it. Bottles clinked from insider.

"Sounds like somebody found wine."

"Beer, actually. Didn't find any wine. Which is so messed up because aren't we in wine country?"

Kai squinted in the early afternoon sunshine and looked like he was trying to smile. She pulled the stuffed giraffe out of the backpack.

"Merry Christmas," she said, handing it to him. The smile broke full force across his face.

"It's not for another three weeks," he said, turning the giraffe around in his hands. Then he hugged it tightly to his chest and turned big playful eyes up at her. "Thanks."

Bonnie nodded and toed her way around the daisy garden to pick up the one Kai had flicked. She felt his eyes on her as she dug a little hole with her finger and buried the end of the stem. She whispered a little spell and felt the daisy take root once more. When she stood and her eyes fell back on Kai, he looked beguiled. He quickly fixed his expression.

"Hungry?" he asked.

"Incredibly."

Kai stood, one arm keeping his new giraffe friend close to his heart, and headed for the front door.

"Wait." Because he wouldn't believe her if she didn't seem hesitant and troubled, she asked, "Are you even ready to be a father?"

Kai turned and tilted his head from side to side. "Even if you decided to go for that today, I'd have nine months to get ready. And anyway, I've always known I'd be a better dad than the sorry excuse I had."

"Pregnancy is hard enough. You'd have to take care of me. There could be complications."

"Doubtfully anything I haven't seen. Seven siblings, remember? And eighteen years of boredom. I've perused a few medical books in my day."

"What if your children are siphons?"

"I'd nurture that. Not punish it. They wouldn't be like me, if that's what you're getting at. And anyway, if that were the case I'd turn them into Heretics at a certain age, if they wanted. Magic for everyone."

"You have it all worked out, don't you?"

"Always."

"Then why me? I need to know. Why do you want me to be the woman who pumps out your legacy?"

"Honestly, Bonnie, I couldn't picture doing anything worth my time with anyone but you. Even if I tried. And I don't want to try. For me…you're it."

She could tell he meant what he said, even if his tone was mechanical and emotionless. The things he could and couldn't do without humanity continued to surprise her. For instance, in a moment like this, he could say the sweetest thing but he couldn't sound less indifferent.

"Hm."

"Why?"

"Let's do it."

"What?" Kai laughed, coming slightly closer, down one step, still squinting, smiling bigger. At least she could surprise him and win these faces.

Bonnie pursed her lips and shifted her weight, needing to look away from Kai for a second to collect all the tics she had whenever she was lying, and bottle them. She set her gaze confidently back on him, knowing the twinkle in her Grams' eyes was genetic.

"Let's make a coven."


	18. Chapter 18

"I need a few days to prepare," he said. And so did she.

Over those days, he behaved somewhat a gentleman. Bonnie took long baths, dressed and undressed without worry, slept alone without interruptions. In the mornings, he made her amateur crepes with berries she picked from the garden, and bacon could be smelled all the way from her room by the time she opened her eyes. He greeted her with "Good Morning, Sunshine,"s and cups of steaming coffee. Afternoons for her were lazy, bordering on indulgent; knowing neither when he would be ready to impregnate her nor leave the house for her to make her own preparations, she whiled away curled up in the reading nook, sometimes with fluffy fiction to take her mind off it, sometimes with a Parker grimoire Kai had packed in Portland and wasn't using. One of these afternoons, she pestered him to the point of driving her to a winery so she could get herself pleasantly tipsy while she read. But she often lost control of her intake and became too foggy to focus on fine print, at which point she would close her book and stagger off to pester him some more.

Every evening was movie night. Kai obliged Bonnie to what films were available in their cottage, which didn't amount to many. The Dark Knight series in overdubbed French became a fast favorite, and led to some of Kai's more cohesive rants and raves on the evolution of Batman. While Bonnie found her ear sufficiently talked off, she thought she could hear hints of her Kai slipping through in his stream-of-consciousness mode of communication.

Nights, he spent locked in his room. If she listened carefully she could hear faint pieces of his voice lost in the tongues of the spell.

Seemingly, he never slept, but spent every moment readying for the ritual, whether he was practicing the incantation or investing in her good graces. Only one time did he let the facade slip when over a lunch of grapes and cheese she confided in him about her latest dream. It was more of a witchy bond that she sought, and she wasn't afraid to divulge that her subconscious was telling her to kill him. But at the mention of her grandmother, he rolled his eyes.

"Do you have a problem with my Grams or something? Every time I bring her up you roll your eyes and make that sound you make."

"What sound?"

"That _uughhahh_ sound," she mimicked, exaggerating only a little.

"Sheila had a hand—a bloody one, to be specific—in putting me away, so yeah. Truth be told, Bonster, if she was still alive when I triumphed out of '94 she would have been on my master hit list, too. So suck on that big lollipop."

 _Triumphed_ , she thought. He was referring to her traumatic abandonment as his triumph. And mentioning offhand that he'd kill one of the people she held most dear.

 _Maybe I_ should _just kill you_.

She had to wonder if the terrible things he said with his humanity off were still thoughts in his head when it was on. But the hope of finding out was reinforcement.

On the day he went Christmas shopping, she kept any possible suspicion at bay with a promise; she would spend her afternoon walking the grounds in search of the perfect Christmas tree. It wasn't an empty promise, but it wasn't at the top of her agenda either.

She waited a safe amount of time after he left before she disappeared into her room and gave herself a smirk in the mirror on the wall.

Half an hour later, she took to the outdoors and judged trees with dedicated severity.

* * *

Bonnie pregnant.

He couldn't shake the image. Didn't want to.

It wasn't completely the life inside her that particularly amused him, not entirely the idea of raising witchlings and teaching them how to play baseball, not fully the concept of giving the Gemini coven the resurgence it so desperately needed. It was all of these things, but specifically one thing more than the others and it made him feel more human than anything ever before.

Just the thought of having sex for its natural, biological purpose… Just the thought of lying with Bonnie, losing sight of his dick in her and blowing his load while she makes her O-face, and then spending the next nine months watching her get fat with his seed, watching her waddle because of what they did, and how strong that would make her to put up with it, how much she would hate him for it… The more he thought about it the more he found it weirdly cool that women's bodies made human beings. It was gross, and hot. And he wondered if thinking these thoughts meant his biological clock was ticking. If he listened, he could hear them. The ticks.

Maybe hearing them was an indicator that Bonnie was right; being a hybrid might actually make his sperm functional.

 _Sperm_. He giggled out loud.

He thought about all this the whole drive back to the cottage, with a trunk full of Christmas and a groin full of anticipation.

He couldn't wait to find out if the Parker bloodline would be furthered. And now that preparations for the holiday were in order, decorations stocked, gifts bought, wrapping paper meticulously picked to tickle her fancy, and a tree would hopefully be chosen by the time he pulled into the driveway…well, he felt that he had gathered enough strength to perform the spell.

* * *

When Kai shouldered through the doorway with arms full of bags from Paris, he stopped dead in the foyer.

"You already cut it down?" he said with a tinge of disappointment at the big fir tree leaning against the wall. Bonnie, standing beside it with her arms crossing and lips pursing, had just then caught her breath. "Not exactly what I expected, but okay."

She moved her arms from their knot at her chest to her hips and lent all her weight sassily to one side.

"Even if I didn't have powers, I don't need a man's help. You gave me a job, I got it done."

Kai grinned tightly and said, "The tree is perfect."

"I know."

He laughed as he crossed the room. "What's with the 'tude? You're not PMS'ing already, are you? I haven't even done the spell."

"No 'tude. Jackass. I'm just not crazy about your obvious lack of appreciation. In case you haven't noticed, there aren't a ton of Christmasy trees out here. I stole that from someone's driveway arrangement a mile down the road."

"How'd you get it here, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Stole their truck too," she said nonchalantly, shrugging. "What'd you get?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," he said, dropping the bags with decorations on the floor and holding the last bag tighter to him. "I had some trouble of my own finding Christmas stuff, you know. In case _you_ haven't noticed, it's summertime."

Bonnie treaded to the bags and kneeled down to rummage through the ridiculous amounts of garlands, bulbs and Kai's bizarre choice of ornaments. Bonnie held up the first Batman ornament she noticed. "Really?"

"Don't worry, there's more."

If she wasn't mistaken, she could just make out a mutilated gingerbread man. A big, fluffy Santa face was in the way and she couldn't tell exactly what kind of decoration it was, so she pulled it out. It was the size of a pillow but too flat. Once it was out of the bag and she could see its fitted ends, she realized it was…

"A toilet seat cover," Kai proudly finished her thoughts aloud.

"You're gonna sit on Santa's face?"

"Mm, so are you once I put on what's in that other bag right there."

"You didn't get a Santa suit."

"I got a Santa suit."

Bonnie contorted her face as she tried not to picture the inevitable: Kai in a Santa suit, fake beard and all, ho-ho-ho'ing by the fireplace on Christmas Eve while she sat on his face. Strangely the only part of it that disturbed her was the suit. Sitting on his face by the fire and a decorated tree sounded interesting.

"What?" he asked, "I didn't want you to miss out on another proper Christmas. Now you can sit on Santa's lap and tell him everything you want. That is, if you aren't on the Naughty List for trying to kill me upwards of, like, six times."

"Something tells me I'll never be on Santa's Nice List ever again," Bonnie mused, tossing the toilet seat cover back into the bag.

"Never say never. I have a few ideas…"

"Keep them to yourself, Mr. Claus."

"For now, Mrs. Claus. Oh and by the way, um, I'm ready to, uh, do the thing with the spell and the stuff, so…put your hiking boots back on, Xena."

Bonnie felt her blood run ice cold. What perfect timing. If she had waited a day longer to make her preparations, she wasn't sure how she would've finagled an opportunity.

"Boots," she questioned with raised eyebrows, "For…?"

"We have to do it outside. Well I guess we don't have to, but it'll be easier on me if we're in the nature. Trees, grass, dirt, water—"

"Earth, wind, fire—"

"And blah blah blah."

"Ok," she said, trying to sound verbally readier than she felt. By the look on his face, he could hear her uneasiness.

"Just the spell, Bon. We don't have to do the other part today. We don't have to do anything until you're ready."

"I know."

"I know you know. I'm just saying we have time."

"I'm ready for the spell."

"And I'm ready to decorate the shit out of this house. So let's hit it. I'm gonna put this stuff upstairs and I'll meet you out front in a jif."

Bonnie watched him skip out of the room and stood frozen to the spot for a minute to wring her hands.

A little more than a "jif" later, she was following Kai out through the field of lavender blowing in the twilight wind. She loved France, and their little home, and she wondered for a second if she should appreciate their environment while she had the chance. What might happen after tonight, she had no way of knowing. But her thoughts were interrupted when Kai stopped short in a higher point of the field and she ran into him. He was too focused to make fun of her.

"I'm not too well trained in rituals but I think if you lay down here," he said, glancing back and forth between the ground and the full moon shyly making its appearance overhead, "we should be good."

"Do you know if your dad planned on bringing backup with him to do this spell?"

"Doesn't matter. I'm stronger than he was."

He dropped the backpack he was carrying and unpacked the few candles he'd collected from around the cottage.

"Ok," she said doubtfully, though she believed it firmly. He'd only had his own magic since the merge but he was strong, and his confidence in his strength added that much more to it.

Bonnie dipped down and rolled onto her butt, folding stocks of lavender beneath her and brushed her palms off on her jeans. Her cheeks felt cool in the breeze and she wondered how she managed to get through the other night outside with nothing to keep her warm. Especially when Kai kneeled beside her and she felt his magic wrapping around her, like he'd taken his coat off and hung it over her shoulders. He put his right hand on her chest and gently urged her down, back flat against the ground. She let him, wanting to be cooperative, both to please him and to get this over with.

He leaned over her and dragged the backside of his hand down the center of her front, from her neck, between her breasts, down her diaphragm and coming to rest at her belly where he handed himself a candle to hold above her belly button. He stared intently at the wick and a small flame burst to life.

"Keep your hands at your sides and just breathe."

"Will it hurt?"

"I don't know. There wasn't anything about that in my dad's grimoire."

"I hope you know what you're doing."

His eyes moved to hers.

"I haven't thought about anything else since you agreed to it. I know what I'm doing."

"Just one candle?"

"Makeshift ritual for a makeshift situation."

Their whole existence was makeshift, it seemed.

He placed his other palm to her forehead and held her head still. His eyes fell closed and he took a deep breath before he started whispering incoherent Latin. The wind picked up instantly.

"Can I help you?" she interrupted quietly. He went silent. His eyes flipped open again, his pupils already on her and dilating. His brows were narrowed but he was amused.

His hand left her forehead for a moment to grab a second candle and put it in her hand. She willed a flame and watched it cling to the wick for dear life as the wind strengthened. Kai closed his eyes and continued the spell a little louder and Bonnie listened, mouthing along as he repeated until the words were ingrained in her mind.

" _A tempore solvere, a somno exsuscitem, ad vitam, factus est mortalis_ ," he spewed with ease, and she whispered along, getting louder the more confident she became in the words coming out of her mouth, and together they chanted. The growing wind turned to roaring winds as the sky darkened and Bonnie felt it rushing up her body, feeling her up like the spell was trying to do, and Kai holding fast at her side like he was about to blow away.

"It's working," she paused to gasp as she began to feel the spell prodding at her being from the outside, getting stronger, more insistent, clawing at her like an animal at a door, wanting in. Kai didn't break, didn't stop chanting or open his eyes to see what she was seeing when she opened hers. The flames on their candles whipped with the air and Bonnie held on tight to the stick of wax in her hand, ignoring the hot drips on her knuckles. Her eyes drew to the full moon growing fuller above, whitening and brightening, making an entrance. She felt its eyes on her as well; it was as tired of repetition as she was.

Kai chanted louder, his rebuttal in a fight with the wailing wind. Bonnie knew Kai's strength by the determination of his spell as it searched her body for entry. She was both impressed and afraid. Less so when the candles died with the wind, and he ended the chant.

She breathed deeply, curling each of her limbs to their ends before arching her spine and rolling onto her side. She found herself curling into Kai's knees and his hand ran down her back, grabbing onto her and helping her to sit upright.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

She let his help stabilize her body and held her palms out between them, separating her fingers and stretching them, keeping her eyes trained wondrously on them as if they held all the evidence.

"Alive," she said, incredulous.

"Yeah?" He was beginning to smile. She smiled, emptily, back.

"I think it worked."

* * *

Night officially fell as they walked back to the cottage. They spent the next hour readying the front room for Christmas. Kai put on a Christmas record and set the tree up while he hummed to himself. Bonnie poured full glasses of wine for them to gorge themselves on and guzzled onto her second while removing the tags from all the goofy things he bought. When the tree was stable, he let her hang all the ornaments while he strung garlands around the room. Between the tinsel and popcorn, the towering tree and the strings of lights hanging around the branches and windows, Bonnie could have been fooled.

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas," she quoted. "And feel like it too."

"Something's missing though," he said, stepping down from hanging his last garland.

"Not your Santa suit," Bonnie hoped out loud. "I'm not missing it. It's not missed."

"Nope, not that. I was just thinking I prefer a white Christmas."

Bonnie nodded and sauntered his way. She was unable to forget that afternoon in Mystic Falls when he made it snow.

"Let's fix that," she offered sweetly, stepping close enough for him to take hold of her. It was unlike her to offer herself up so willingly for what she knew would hurt. But in her mind, it was worth it for more than one reason.

Kai, satisfied, took her hand this time. She was surprised he didn't just grab onto her shoulders and go for it, and she would admit to preferring this gentle method.

"It won't hurt if you concentrate on giving as much as I do on taking," he enlightened. Eerily his words struck a deeper chord than he probably intended. Though she couldn't place quite why.

His palm centered with hers, thumb pressing into her knuckles and rubbing unexpectedly comforting circles before the tap opened up and she felt her magic sliding. A groan overtook her at first, then she honed in on what he'd said and instead of fighting to tug her magic back, she willed it out, sent it off with a pat on the head. Distantly she became aware of the power surging, the room and all the pretty Christmas lights fading out and popping brightly back on. Before she knew it, the drilling pain dwindled and became a dull pulling, only somewhat uncomfortable, and then it was over.

She realized her eyes had been closed and she opened them to see Kai beaming with power, his left hand outstretched toward the ceiling. He inhaled deeply and let her hands go with a reassuring smirk before he looked over to the windows, and her gaze followed.

Outside, all was white. Flurries twirled down from the sky. Bonnie let out a wooed laugh. When she looked back to Kai he was watching her amazement with calm admiration. She was almost taken aback by what she saw in his eyes and had to carefully guard her heart before another second passed.

"Makeshift weather for a makeshift holiday," she said.

He smiled, tilted his head in thought and took back her hand while he wrapped an arm loosely around her back.

"Makeshift gesture from my makeshift heart," he said as he held her to him, beginning to sway in time with the song playing.

"You're not trying to dance with me right now, are you?" She didn't know how Kai had so much energy after shopping all day, performing a big spell and decorating. She was exhausted.

"You don't have to do any work. I just want to hold you."

"Why?"

"Um…I don't know. I just like being as close to you as I can get."

 _Sweet_. He was being so sweet. A picture of this moment could never convey the darkness idling in either of their minds. Bonnie relaxed in his hold, letting her head careen into his shoulder, her fingers interlace with his and her free hand reach around to hold his firm back. She felt his contentment emanating from him. Nothing in the way he talked or carried himself tonight suggested he was feeling mischievous. Though he was the epitome of Mr. Wrong, he could pretend to be Mr. Right whenever he wanted. It scared her.

"Kai…" she mumbled into his shirt.

"Bonnie…" he mumbled into her hair. She felt his voice rumble against her temple and it stirred the same desire that settled down below. She wasn't tired anymore. Hormones were beginning to make sure of it. If she needed more energy than allotted for her evil plan, she was certain she could find it somewhere in her.

"Are you tired?" she asked.

"Nope."

"How are you feeling?"

"I'm feeling like you're about to rip my shirt off."

She paused and realized she was pulling his shirt behind his back, and digging her fingernails into the cotton like she was trying not to fall.

"Sorry."

"Don't be. I was enjoying it. …You seem pretty tired yourself, I think we should get you to bed," he suggested, lifting her off the ground and catching her by the bottom. She whooped a little in surprise, but settled quickly in his arms and wrapped her legs around his body for better support.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she strained, her elbows bouncing against his shoulders as he carried her across the living room.

"Oh really."

"In fact, I feel pretty energized."

"Energized, hm?"

"So, so energized," she teased in his ear, and he laughed. "So…"

He started up the stairs, creaking one by one as they ascended.

"So what?"

"We should probably do something about that. To, you know, make me tired."

They topped the stairs and entered the dark hallway that would lead them ultimately to one room or the other. Kai stopped at the end of the hall, between her door on one side and his on the other, and gently loosened his arms to let Bonnie plop back on her feet.

"Anyone ever tell you you're pretty bad at seduction?" he said as she balanced. "But it's been a while, maybe you're just a little off your game."

"Umm…"

"Give it up, Bon, and just say it. You wanna do me."

Bonnie couldn't look directly at him. For as forward as she was trying to be, she was utterly failing at seeing it through. Yes, she was playing him, but yes, she wanted to do him, and the piercing way he looked at her made it difficult to process a clear next move in either direction. So she busied one of her hands with the neck hole of his shirt and watched herself obsessively twist his collar.

"Now that I know there's some risk involved…"

Kai opened his bedroom door and pried Bonnie's hand from his shirt, guiding her inside.

"Wanna play roulette?" he asked as a candle on his side table lit up. Bonnie rolled her shoulders to help herself fall into character, or someone unlike her true self, who was beginning to feel paralyzed with excitement at the reality of having sex with him again right then and right there.

 _Roulette_? Was he referring to the pullout method? _How human_ , she thought, on the fence between disenchantment and actually being turned on by the risk.

"Maybe." Seductively, she asked, "Will it put me on the Nice List?"

Kai bit his lip.

"Hmm…risky sex with _me_ , probably not worthy of Santa's Nice List. But it might win you a slot on mine."

"Yay," she feigned, and without giving him any warning she tugged her shirt up and pulled it over her head. Wishing she had more hair to work with, she dragged her fingers through what she had, trying to give it some sexy volume as her plump lips relaxed and she turned prettily half-mast eyes up at him.

He laughed as he watched the show she had inadvertently put on and said, "Yay. You're so cute when you're being cute." His eyes dropped from her carefully arranged facial expression to the black see-through lace bra she wore, too tight. He stepped into her bubble and didn't ask before running his hand down from the bow between her breasts to her waistband.

"I could eat you up," he breathed against her forehead. It took too much in her not to let him just yet.

"On second thought…" she began softly as she let herself live a little and touch him. She mirrored what he'd done to her in drawing a lazy line from his sternum, down his abs, to the buckle of his belt. "I don't wanna play roulette."

"Oh?"

She shook her head. He palmed her jean shorts over the pubic bone and his fingers moved down, slipping under the hem at her thigh, under the narrow part of panty fabric over her slit. Her pulse went wild as she felt her sex parting for him of its own accord; he hadn't even tried to get in yet.

"No. No roulette. I want you to shoot me with everything you've got."

She slid her fingers beneath his jeans, feeling his cool skin, the coarse hair surrounding his shaft that pulsed harder with every word she spoke. She let her fingers wrap around the middle and gripped. His breath turned husky with need and she felt his fingers, two at once, slide into her.

"There?" he asked.

"Deeper," she demanded.

With his fingers inside her, he pushed until she backed up against his bed. And because this was his territory she was treading, she politely waited to enter the bed until he crowded her into it with his body. His shoulders at her chin's height seemed to herd her back; she had no choice but to lean backward and crab crawl into his bed if she didn't want a mouthful of his shirt. She was careful in her movements, trying to keep her stomach muscles relaxed so his fingers wouldn't be rejected; she wanted them there even if it delayed the eventual climax of her plan, even if it led to what he thought it would…because she missed it, and him, and feeling how much he wanted her. The desire to feel him and nothing more, and to avoid tension with him, was almost enough to dissuade her from what she was about to do…almost.

"You're sure you want to do this?" he asked, an inch from kissing her as she laid her head back into his pillow. "Because if it works, there's no going back."

His fingers paused in deepening when he focused on her face, awaiting her response with more respect than she could have anticipated coming from him. For some reason, he cared what she thought, how she felt, what she wanted out of this life with him and when she wanted it. Once again, she wondered if he never flipped his humanity switch and it hadn't just been a placebo effect on him all along, and once again she reminded herself that Kai Parker was a talented actor. And it didn't matter. That regardless of the truth about his switch, she needed to do this because whether or not he was within or without himself, he needed her to break him. They both did.

She nodded fervently, and with the littlest thrust of her hips to reassure him, she said, "I'm sure."

Kai's lips twisted slowly into a small, devilish smile and his eyes became small with suspicion.

"You don't expect me to believe this, do you?"

His fingers slipped out, leaving her hollow and confused, and he supported his weight above her with his hands pinning her shoulders to the bed.

"Believe what?"

"The Bonnie Bennett I know wouldn't be so thrilled to do this. Not so soon in this kind of place, and least of all with me."

A talented actor, and intelligent. His doubt wasn't part of the plan and she ran through possible deterrents in her mind.

"Maybe I'm not the Bonnie Bennett you know. I'm not even the Bonnie Bennett I know right now, ok? Things have changed. This place, it changed me. You changed me."

"What are you planning? Because I know it's not a family with me."

"That's enough," she growled. She grabbed fistfuls of his shirt and shoved him off but didn't let go. She slammed him back onto the bed and sat over him the way he had her, pinning him at the shoulders and glaring.

"This isn't a good start to family planning, just so you know. Partners don't treat each other this way. We," she said, motioning to herself and to him with a frantic hand, "can't treat each other this way if what you really want is to start a coven from the womb up. And stop looking at me like I'm the deceitful liar in this relationship. You don't know what I want. I lost my family, Kai. And unlike you, I didn't kill them because I can't get over myself. It wasn't my choice to be the end of the Bennett line. You can't know how much I want a family again." She started to tear up and couldn't tell if she was playing anymore. The tears flowed without her telling them to. "I want to start a family more than you do. Because I want it for the right reasons. So don't tell me I'm planning anything else. We're doing this."

They stared each other down for a moment, Bonnie seething and hoping, Kai calculative and seemingly wounded. He cut the staring game short and she felt his shoulder muscles shift under her hand while his arm reached between their legs.

"Well drag me screaming then," he said, officially convinced, as he unzipped his jeans.

It wasn't her choice to laugh. The exasperated giggle just hopped right out of her mouth, and when it did he smiled, too, the amoral beast in him temporarily abated.

Now was the time. Things weren't progressing according to schedule, but she had been able to steer him right where she wanted him, and that was this moment. _Shame it didn't take just a little longer_ , she thought.

"Kai?" she started, with a purposeful change in her tone as she stopped his hand on its way to her zipper.

"Bonnie?"

"Can I tell you something? And will you promise not to get mad?"

"That depends."

"Just promise," she insisted, holding out her thin pinky finger.

She knew it meant nothing to him making a pinky promise, and hated him a little bit for curling his pinky around hers with the obvious gleam in his eyes. She knew that look. He was currently assessing her, maybe waiting for his cue whether to siphon with his promising pinky right now.

"Tell me," he dared gently. And she nodded.

"You…get…kind of cranky when you live off of blood bags."

He smiled, possibly relieved, possibly irritated. "And?"

"And I think we should revive your weekly schedule."

"It's not enough for me anymore."

"Reconfigure, then. But you're hard to live with when you don't eat right. Honestly, I don't mind. Here," she said, holding her wrist out to him.

"Wrist?" he laughed. "Really? That's kind of beneath us, Bon, don't you think?"

She smiled her most flattered smile back and fluttered her eyelashes a little. She swung her leg over him so she could sit at his right side while he sat up and faced her. She felt the arteries in her neck buzzing with suspense as he set his sights on them.

"You don't want to wait until after?" he asked, the dark veins starting to spider up from his eyelids. Redness appeared around his irises as they darkened with thirst and she knew he would lose control any second.

"No," she squeezed out of her drying mouth and shaking her head weakly. "Remember the first time we…?"

Kai smiled wide at the reminder and lunged into feeding. Bonnie was still lost in the memory of their first time together when his teeth broke into her throat. It took her breath away, the pain of _now_ mixing with the pleasure of _then_. Of course, _then_ , there was pain too. There always was with him.

"Does that taste good?" she crooned, hoping to encourage him.

He purred and wrapped his arm tightly around her upper body.

"Good."

Again she wondered what it was about feeding the beast that made her feel oddly powerful. She never pictured herself getting used to being a vampire's feed bag, and she knew her old self would grimace and dismiss this warped version of Bonnie Bennett she had become. Then again, though he was ungrateful sometimes, she was helping him. That, she couldn't deny, was like her. It didn't matter that he was a vampire and they were natural enemies. He was a witch first, a vampire second, and a person beside the point.

To her surprise, she heard his jaws unhinge from her neck, the sound of her torn flesh letting him loose like a peach and juice did run in hurried streams down her chest. Kai's head lolled back in pleasure, his eyes closed and his mouth open, burgundy with blood inside and out. His fangs still hung out, proudly desperate.

"It's never enough," he moaned.

Bonnie swept some of her bloodied hair behind her ear and sighed.

 _You can do this. You can do this. You can do this._

Aware of the consequences, she offered, "So take more."

He opened his eyes on her and they were glazed with thirst.

"Anymore and I won't be able to stop."

"So don't."

"I'll kill you," he said with sudden subtle mirth.

"So kill me."

He scowled, despite an undertone of thrill, and said, "No." She could tell he was trying his hardest to sound appalled. She hoped it meant this was working, that he was close.

She tilted her head back, showing him more of her neck, the pit of red she knew was running at her throat, knowing full well how brutal she was being. "No," he repeated, moving closer, his voice quieting and his growl deepening, "No…no" until his lips couldn't hide his teeth and his nature couldn't hide his hunger.

"So much blood," Bonnie whispered, "Just clean it off. You know you want to."

Before she could process his movement, his hand was fisting the hair at the back of her head and she had been wrenched forward into his mouth. His jaws were clamped and sucking hard, though it wasn't the vicious feed-to-kill ripping and tearing she feared it would be. It hurt damn well enough but he took her in slowly, and maybe he wasn't yet aware of what he was going to do. Maybe he was fighting it. But his suck was unforgiving, too quickly bringing her head into a dizzy lull. When she stopped holding herself up, she felt the bed like a cloud at her back and him, like death itself, crushing what little breath she had with his well-fed weight.

 _One last time_. _You can do this_.

* * *

He didn't mean to do it.

All of her, every drop, swirled in his stomach. He remembered feeling so good and at the exact second he felt full and nourished, he let go of her…only to find her unconscious. Her eyes were closed, her neck, chest and pillow just one red mess, her right arm bent at a strange angle and the room, he realized, zapped short of her hum. But he refused to believe he wasn't feeling it. It had to be a blood high, so much in his system temporarily impairing his senses.

"Bonnie," he scolded, shaking her left shoulder, and her skin on his yielded nothing. He felt no magic in her, no power, no pulse. "Bonnie!"

He leapt out of the bed, he didn't know why, and paced the room for a short five seconds, during which time he recalled the spell they had done earlier. That her body was now mortal, and he was inexorably the foulest monster ever born.

He flew back into the bed and rattled her again by the shoulders, this time desperately and more violently than he would have if he didn't know it was hopeless. He needed to believe he could shake the life out of her if it would get him through the next minute, if it would help him keep himself. Trying to think faster than he drowned, he chomped on his wrist and smeared her mouth with his blood, yelling at her to drink. Her lips kept still.

He found it haunting that her body was still warm with the life that had just left it, but he couldn't convince that life to turn around and come back. How long would the warmth remain before he lost his mind? He didn't know but he— felt something.

He had finally done it. He killed her. For good, this time. For real. No jokes, no smoke or mirrors. And it horrified him. He didn't understand all of a sudden why or how this happened, why he did it, how he let it. But there she was, a body without a life, because of him. The first person he ever loved, the first person who ever broke through to him, the first person who might have one day learned to love him back…now dead…because of him.

" _Bonnie_?" he croaked, watching his wrist heal and nothing else improved. He brushed her hair aside and cupped her cooling cheek. " _Bonster_?"

No longer able to look her in the face, he scooped her head up into his arms and cradled her limp form and something was coming, he knew it, felt it once. Once, or a hundred times, after he merged with Luke, like a dam broke inside him. Like a window opened. Like a switch flipped. And he shook. And he howled. And he cried.


	19. Chapter 19

Everything.

It trickled in until it poured until it flooded and he couldn't breathe.

All he'd done in the time his switch was off came back to him with new shades over the memories. Shades of guilt, shades of embarrassment, shades of appreciation.

He confessed his love.

He asked for her hand in marriage.

He asked her to bear his children.

All admittedly things he really did want, but not on the terms he himself had laid out for her. This was no place to raise a family. He especially should know. But it was moot now that the woman he wanted all of these things with was dead. Now he had nothing. Nothing but an acidic hole inside him, gnawing his sanity minute by agonizing minute. Childhood accusations were confirmed: he ruined everything he touched.

But Bonnie.

She wasn't a thing. She was a person. His favorite person.

Adapting to regular emotions on a day to day basis was hard enough, but this. This guilt. It was unbearable, though he knew he deserved to bear it, and many more discomforts for this, the worst thing he'd ever done. The worst thing he would ever hold himself accountable for.

He held her body for an hour after he killed her. He rocked her until she grew cold. Now he couldn't swallow for the dryness in his throat, could hardly see through the puffiness of his eyes. And it was strange…while he felt everything at its full force, he found that he felt most numb now. Paralyzed with pain.

In a daze, he eventually laid her body in a respectable straight line on the bed and moped off to the kitchen. He grabbed the bottles of Heineken out of the fridge and lined them up on the kitchen table where he sat and popped open the first bottle to drink. The alcohol hit his bloodstream, he felt its weak alteration at work and knew he would need much more to dull the see-sawing knife in his heart.

At least now it was simple. Any world without Bonnie was no world for him, therefore…

Committing suicide was easier as a human. He used to crash cars in atrocious ways, jump off of buildings, off of cliffs, out of windows. He'd stabbed himself in the heart and man, it was tough breaking through his sternum with human strength. He went hang-gliding for fun and had a comical accident doing that. He drowned himself in a lake, and once in the ocean. More than once in the bathtub. He had a theory going at one point that the game of his world was finding the right way to die, figuring out which thing would actually kill him, what death would be the key and set him free. He ate poison berries hoping that something that was organically of the 1994 world might do the trick, but he woke up after that, too. He traveled to Antarctica to see if he couldn't just bury himself in snow and freeze, and stay frozen until something rapturous happened. It didn't. He only woke up cold, wet and more miserable than just moseying the world alone in dry clothes. After that, he lost hope. He did whatever the hell he wanted, he took risks. If he had an accident and died, so what. If he didn't, so what. He became numb.

When he felt her hum in his world for the first time, it was like his first breath in eighteen years. Now he'd felt her hum for the last time and it was like suffocating again. And killing himself would be harder. There was only a small number of ways to do it and he had to decide which death was just right for the crime he had committed.

Desiccating until further notice wouldn't do anyone any good; this world shouldn't exist without its prisoner. Jamming a sharp piece of wood into his hurting chest seemed too kind. Beheading himself, while a brutal notion, also seemed kinder than he deserved. If Bonnie herself was able to rip his heart clean out of his chest, he'd prefer it.

He imagined flames licking him to ashes while the world around him, her world, their world, imploded. And their bodies would be cast together into nothingness, the only afterlife he could accept.

He downed the rest of his beer in one swig, slammed the empty bottle down on the table and moved on to the next.

What he deserved, and what he wanted, was to burn in Hell.

* * *

"I asked him to kill me so that he'd do it and learn a lesson. But part of me hoped he wouldn't because then that would mean he has enough self control to value my life. And he didn't. It's a double edged sword, either way I get hurt."

She should've expected to find herself here.

In the confines of her own mind, or death, chatting with Grams. This time her grandmother made the trip; instead of her house, they were riding the Ferris wheel at the empty carnival Bonnie had found. They both wore bare feet, hats and sundresses, as if the wheel was the gate in her subconscious between living and oblivion and she needed to look her Sunday best for judgement. The sky glowed a foreboding orange and the Ferris wheel, slowly in its revolution, gave her a breathtaking view of the rest of this strange place, wherever it truly was. It was the same as she remembered it, but so darkly different. The ends of the land she could see were blackness at its purest, colors that did appear were grossly saturated and the edges of all discernible things were sharp. Maybe she was really dead.

Grams put her loving hand on Bonnie's knee and said, "Yet time and time again you put yourself in these positions. This time you're the one holding the sword. That boy didn't ask you to do this."

Bonnie kept her face stony, not proud of what she'd done and where it had gotten her, not remembering the power she felt when she decided to coax Kai into killing her for his own good.

"Doesn't matter. I'm not doing it again." _Ever._

"Good. He isn't worth it," the woman reminded, and Bonnie wondered for a shameful second if anyone ever was. It wasn't like they ever returned the favor. She was always the first to sacrifice herself and the last to be saved. But Kai… At Jo and Alaric's wedding, he put her an inch from death. He waited for Damon and when Damon would come, truth would out. And the truth was, only Kai was there to save her, and only Kai did. So why shouldn't she return the sentiment?

"That's just it, Grams. He _is_ worth it. So much that it might actually kill me. That's why I'm starting to think…" she trailed off uncertainly. Should she say it out loud or swallow it back down and let it reform back into the rock that had been living in the pit of her stomach since the first time she kissed him?

"You know it would be heresy to love him."

"Just fifty percent."

"And one hundred percent crazy."

"I can't argue with that," Bonnie admitted. Their seat had reached the bottom of the wheel's revolution and they were again ascending.

"Whether or not he's a Heretic, he is a killer," Grams said firmly. "He was a killer before he became a Heretic and he will never change. As a witch you were born to uphold the balance of nature, Bonnie. Killers are the ultimate rebels against nature and protecting one will upset that balance. Heresy, baby."

"I'm not protecting him."

"Protect, befriend, marry, procreate…all the same wrongs when it comes to him."

"Ew."

Grams chuckled, "Stranger things have happened. Stranger people have been loved."

" _I don't love him_."

"It's okay that you're lying to me. We can't help who we fall for, Bonnie. He's handsome, charming when he wants to be, and powerful. It was only a matter of time before he got to you."

"Im not some frail damsel swooning over him. I'm not weak."

"No, you're not. On the contrary, you'd be stronger to admit he makes you feel something. That's why you're here, isn't it? So long as you don't let your heart get in the way of his demise, and he will meet it one day, you know. Don't let him take you down with him."

"I don't even know if my spell worked yet," Bonnie mumbled, wanting nothing to do with this conversation anymore. They were nearing the top and if she looked for it she could see the black roof of her cottage with Kai. It wasn't really black, she remembered. Everything here looked a shadow of itself.

Grams' boney grip on her knee tightened and Bonnie felt the urge to look at her. Their eyes met and a spark of affection traveled through her. Even if what her grandmother said was hurting her, she meant only well.

The old woman adjusted her hat as if a breeze would blow it off. Bonnie recognized the futile action; there was no wind here. No air. This place hung still and heavy as the water in an untouched snow globe. The hat was going nowhere and neither was Grams, because it and she were products of this place, of her own imagination, and not genuine interferences from elsewhere. The woman beside her was perhaps the most candid agent of her subconscious: herself. Speaking through a projection of the person whose guidance Bonnie valued most.

"If you're dreaming," the projection said with a kind, wrinkly smile, "your brain's alive… Wake up."

* * *

Bonnie's eyes flipped open.

For a second, her mind was blank. Her body adjusted to coherence, ran through a checklist of vitalities. _Where am I, Who am I, What am I, When am I, Why am I,_ and most important of all, _Am I_? The electricity of life and magic shot to her fingertips and sleep's paralysis lifted like a ghost from her muscles. Her fingers twitched. Her spine, aligned in rest on the bed, curled as she sat up. The room was bright with day.

She exhaled, her breath thick with relief. Her spell worked. Now she only needed to know if the plan as a whole worked. Which begged the question: where was Kai?

Bonnie shivered and looked down to find herself still in nothing but her shorts and her bra, and a fine layer of dry blood. Looking back at the pillows she just rose from, covered in her rust-colored life, she felt sick.

She took a moment to change before seeking him out, trying not to think about the possibilities. How he might have reacted to her death, whether it activated his humanity or not. If not, had he simply run off to find new fun? She couldn't feel his hum, now that she was thinking about it.

 _Forget changing_ … Walking around in bloody undergarments couldn't make her any less becoming in this world. She closed her wardrobe and went in search of him.

As much as she wanted to run in a frenzy, she couldn't find the emotional energy in herself. She'd had life injected into her fresh, rejuvenating her body simply like a brand new day, but her mind felt so tired.

She took slow steps down to the kitchen first. There was no sign of him but twelve empty Heineken bottles staggered on the table, and one chair busted into a smattering of sticks across the floor.

 _"_ _What are you gonna do when I die?"_ Her own voice, in a memory, sounded out in her mind. And then his. _"I guess…I'll sit in this chair, drink myself to sleep, wake up in the morning and begin a new fucking day."_

She remembered that conversation. Before she knew the details about this world, when she still had a lively amount of hope, and she really thought he might one day have to live with her death. But here she was, looking at the chair in which he must've sat and drank himself to _something_ , but by the looks of that chair it wasn't sleep. If he skipped straight to beginning a _new fucking day_ , she wouldn't know where.

She smoothed her hand across her naked belly, starting to feel sick again. _Sick,_ or maybe it was him. Yes… A subtle nudge of someone else's magic, but it was faint. He was either far, or close to a peaceful death, or so distraught that he was blocked. Something she knew too well.

It felt like it was coming from the front of the cottage. She paced into the living room, where all the Christmas decorations she'd completely forgotten about were still lit. The room felt like a candied omen. It disturbed her so much she had to shake it off like she was drying her hands.

She happened to look at the windows and see that all the snow he'd siphoned her magic to make fall had melted with the new day and it was summertime again. Then she noticed the figure standing a ways out in the field and her magic leaned toward it.

Not bothering to put her shoes on, Bonnie walked outside to fetch him. Her magical sense of him remained less immediate than her sight and it appeared he could not feel her approaching. He was turned away from the house, looking down at something. His hands maybe?

Bonnie squinted in the bright, early afternoon sunshine, watching the way he moved for signs of humanity. Or rather, the way he didn't move at all. He only stood there, looking down, and as she stepped nearer, she still felt the earth and the sharp stocks of growth scratching the soles of her feet more than any strengthening hum. Was he standing there dead on his feet? _Of course not_ , she thought, because then this world would be tearing itself apart.

She stopped some fifteen feet behind him when she was close enough to realize he was staring down at the daylight ring she made for him, and with his other hand thumbing it in thoughtful circles around his finger. And she realized what she was walking in on. And the harrowing _what if_ , if she had taken just minutes longer to come back to life, or to get herself dressed…it pressed the air from her lungs. She gasped.

He turned, quickly like he couldn't believe he'd actually heard it, slowly like he didn't. If Bonnie had any breath left, she would've gasped again.

The skin around his eyes was red like he'd just taken a beating, and there was no white to his eyes…only red capillaries grappling desperately for his blue irises. But even they were hardly visible beneath his low, low eyelids. Yes, he was distraught. Which meant it worked.

He stared at her for a moment and she couldn't find any register in his eyes that he was actually seeing her. Until his posture wavered and he took his first step in her direction, dropping his suicidal hands to his sides and letting them hang limply while he took another unsure step.

She wanted to meet him halfway but felt rooted, tethered down to the earth by what she was seeing. She had never seen him so drunk. Or so upset that his eyes lacked expressiveness. In fact, all she gathered from his eyes was that Kai had cried before. Recently.

He reached her, his dead pupils bored into hers, flicking from one to the other before he dropped to the ground at her feet. He bowed his head between her knees and his body was wracked by a tremor. His hands clawed into the earth with the force of it before he slowly wrapped them around her ankles. He leaned his head against her knee for a moment and she watched him, feeling quite cold in herself, enjoying this and hating it. She had been mourned.

Finally he turned his face up and their eyes locked again, and now she was seeing him in his eyes, all his pain, all his guilt, and new relief at having her back. She saw these things magnified in a coat of dew rising up over his eyes and spilling out the sides. The tears slid down his face, and she frowned, finding that she could not enjoy this at all.

Bonnie knelt down to his level. She reached out and cupped his jaw, feeling the beginnings of hair growth, and she softened her eyes.

"I'm ok," she croaked, her throat tightening. Seeing him so sad was about to bring out her own tears. It wrenched her gut to know she had done this to him, but it had been necessary, and she would not pity him.

"I'm so sorry, Bonnie," he whispered, shaking his head, his eyelids fluttering under the weight of a true apology.

"Good," she said as kindly as she could.

"I mean it." His hands found hers and he held them together between his palms. "I am so, so sorry. I hate being this. I hate being a Heretic, Bonnie, I hate being a vampire, so much that I can't feel anything else sometimes."

"Then why'd you do it? Why'd you do this to yourself?"

"Because I love you so much it feels like poison." He sniffed, shouldered the wetness from his eyes and set his sorrowful gaze back on her with some visible determination. "I meant it when I said I wanted to be more like you. Loyal, patient and kind. I do. Maybe that's the only good thing about me. That I want to be good. But I can't be good like you. It's too late for me. You're the most beautiful human being I've ever known, Bonnie Bennett, and I'm not talking about how pretty you are. You're the only person who makes me _want_ to be good."

Bonnie moved her hands to hold his as tightly as he held hers and listened, becoming just as moved by emotive energy. The longer she held his hands, the longer their skin touched, she began to feel his hum growing. He continued, his voice slow and careful not to taint what he said with the depression caused by his drinking. "Any guy would be lucky to love you, to marry you, and to have a family with you. I don't deserve you. And you didn't deserve any of this, you don't deserve to live with someone like me for eternity. That's Hell. And you're getting out of it."

Bonnie blinked at him confusedly.

"What?"

He sighed.

"Even if we can't find a way to fix the ascendant…" he started sadly. "Bonnie…I'm so sorry for keeping this from you, this is so messed up, I'm so fucked up and bad for you," he gritted, and she suspected he would hit himself if they weren't holding each other's hands so tightly.

"Kai," she tried to urge him gently.

He sighed and looked deeper, fearfully, into her eyes.

"There's a loophole."


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: it is three in the morning and I have just finished retyping this chapter into doc manager because problems. So please excuse any spelling errors, I'm sure there are some left. (hopefully I fixed all of the "Kia"s lol. Other than that, enjoy! I love all of you, readers. XOXO**

* * *

 **20**

* * *

 _There's a loophole._

"H-how?" she stuttered.

He had expected to be swiftly punched when, or if, he ever told her about this. Maybe it was coming but he would accept her abuse gracefully, even gratefully. What mattered now, despite himself, was the she knew and that he freed her.

"It's complicated," he said, giving her hand a squeeze, "But you're smarter than I let you believe."

She stared at him dumbfounded and he didn't know what else to say, how to explain himself-twelve heinekens were clouding him. He wondered how soon his vampirism would trump his level of intoxication and sober him up enough not to feel like he was botching everything he said.

Bonnie let go of his hand and pulled hers away. Did she completely hate him? Was this it-the beginning of the end? Suddenly it was like anything that ever bonded them was fading away and all that remained was the fact that she was his prisoner. Would she let go of him in the darkness now that there was a light at the end of the tunnel?

"Try your hardest to explain," she demanded softly.

"Remember you were talking about a bridge, back when all you wanted was to get out and you wouldn't let it go?"

"That's still all I want."

Kai winced internally.

"There's already a bridge, of sorts. I made it just in case things ever went south, like things always do. And they have."

"Wow." She started to look sick, like she was about to throw up. She looked down at the ground and took a deep breath. "When can we go?"

 _So soon?_

"Um," he faltered, but the reality was, "Whenever you want."

She nodded feverishly and quickly swiped an unwelcome tear from her cheek.

"We'll need to go back to Mystic Falls 'cause I'm guessing you don't want to just magically in a random spot where you don't know anyone. I'm in no condition to fly today... But I will, if you want to go now."

"I can wait until tomorrow."

 _Tomorrow._ It was so little time to keep reminding her how much he loved her, to smother her with it, to- _stop_. He could already feel the effects of alcohol dwindling and all his thoughts pooling in its place, they wouldn't quit. But it was hard to talk. This moment, this conversation and his love were all too heavy to use so many words at once. His brain just kept filling up with all the things he wanted to say and wouldn't. Things he wanted to do, and couldn't.

"What is it?" she asked, the curiosity overtaking her tone. "Is it like a portal we don't need the ascendant to access or can I just click my heels and wake up from this nightmare?"

"Sort of. The portal part."

Using her hands to push off from the ground, Bonnie stood up and Kai, carefully, followed. He supposed it shouldn't surprise him that once again her main focus was on getting out. Or that she took a step back from him.

"You're being so cryptic. Tell me more."

He put his hands on his hips and steadied himself, his drunkenness wearing off yet weighing him down just slightly.

"The bridge loophole needs its own components to work," he explained slowly, scratching his itchy stubble in thought. "Like a spell. It's just a little different from the ascendant spell. And..." he trailed off, gazing over the top of her head and zoning out. He was nothing how beautiful the world was, and remembering that it was only a copy of something real.

"And?" she pressed.

He cleared his throat and brought himself back to the moment.

"In order for the spell to actually open the bridge portal, this world needs to shut down."

Bonnie narrowed her eyes at him, not in anger but something else Kai was unable to identify.

"You mean-"

"I have to die."

She mirrored his stance and put her hands on her hips. She bit her lip for a second and studied him before finally saying, "I don't know if I can accept that."

He chuckled hollowly. "Yeah. Right."

But she shook her head and her defiance on the matter warmed him.

"At the very least I'll have to get so close to death that the world thinks it's time to fall apart."

"Will that work?"

"I don't know. But whatever happens," he stepped closer and took her hand again, "You are getting out. Don't worry about me."

Bonnie sighed and looked out to the horizon. Kai hadn't spent much time considering what ways he might be able to trick his way onto the bridge. When he thought of the concept, he hadn't necessarily envisioned himself on it. It was more of a failsafe for Bonnie, in case of anything. He remembered she was some kind of queen of resurrection. She had told him before about all the times she had died, the time she spent as an anchor to the Other Side, feeling everyone else's deaths. If anyone could save him, it was her. But daring to ask was another thing.

"How did you do it anyway? How are you alive? Did my spell not work?"

She crossed her arms and set her sad eyes on him.

"It would have. Your magic is...really strong. But I put a shielding spell on myself. It made me temporarily impervious to outer spells."

"That's smart," he acknowledged, smiling and nodding, unable to keep what he knew was a dumb look of amazement out of his eyes. Because she amazed him with her wit and how well she could play it off. How reserved she was. He wished he could be so humble.

"Look, Bonnie... I'll teach you the bridge spell. I want you to get out of this place. But I have to lay down one condition."

Bonnie rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Of course you do. Of course you would have a-"

"Don't sacrifice yourself for anyone else," he interrupted. "Ever again."

"Excuse me?"

"If you get yourself killed for someone else's benefit, after all this- Just promise me you won't martyr yourself anymore."

"I can't make a promise like that, Kai," she nailed and threw her hand in the air, "There's always trouble back home."

Her retreat began. Sudden steps back towards the cottage told him this conversation was almost over.

"So what? It's not your trouble. Bonnie, you're better than that."

Bonnie stopped to cut into him once more before fleeing the conversation.

"No, Kai. I'm better than letting my loved ones suffer when I have the means to end it. But I wouldn't expect you to know anything about that."

* * *

Bonnie sat at the bar in the kitchen, finally in a clean, comfortably loose, mauve dress, eating a plate of asparagus. She could hear Kai roaming around the house but they had been avoiding each other.

He'd told her there was a loophole in this prison world and she couldn't stop thinking about what that meant for her. For them. The excitement for some reason could not penetrate her layers of mood and while she intended to have Kai take her home as soon as possible, she dreaded it. And hated that. For one, she wasn't going back to much. Being dead multiple times had sufficiently hacked up her college career and the only friends she had to return to, presumably, were Caroline and Matt. With Elena under that sleeping beauty spell (or dead), Jeremy off wherever he was, Damon's betrayal and potential for hunting her down when he realized she was alive, and Stefan's probably non-commitment to that situation...things could be grim. But she refused to let these things keep her from going home.

She rolled her eyes, thinking first of all the things she needed to get together, then smiled a little to herself when she realized it was like being able to take objects out of a dream. Designer clothes she would never be able to afford in the real world would most definitely be making the trip with her. _Caroline might lose it._

And what about Kai? What was his place in her world? What were his plans? She doubted, for some reason, that he would actually need to die in order to get her home. He was like a cockroach. A really cute cockroach who was probably feeling like a piece of shit. Bonnie smiled a little bit wider in satisfaction; not only had her plan succeeded in flipping his humanity switch back on, but the switch flipped so hard she was actually getting to go home. Two weeks ago she wouldn't have believed it. Aside from his little slips and descents in that dangerous apathy of his, she had been somewhat content to spend her holiday season in their cottage. With him.

She heard Kai's footsteps wandering into the kitchen, and then a click. When she looked up, he was lowering a polaroid camera from his face and watching the photograph print out. He pinched the corner inches fingers, looked up to Bonnie innocently and waved the picture to dry it out. He didn't smile. Maybe he knew better.

Bonnie went back to ignoring him when he slid the developing photograph across the counter, leaving it beside her plate.

"I'm sorry," he said again, with the tone of his earlier apologies. Clearly he was still feeling guilty about what he'd done. Rightfully so. She'd lose what last bit of hope she had left for him if it took him less than a day to accept his wrongs and move on.

"You're lucky your apology tour is just me."

"Yeah," he agreed, sitting in the stool beside her. "Only I have so much to apologize for. And so little time."

"How are you handling that anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"Every time Stefan...Salvatore, Damon's brother-"

"I know who Stefan is."

"Every time he flipped his switch he had kind of a long recovery period. Just dealing with the guilt and the mourning and the whole aftermath of being a soul sucking ripper douche. But you know how they say most people are harder on themselves than others..."

"Why do I get the feeling that won't apply to me?"

"Oh," she chuckled dryly, "I forgot. Your sociopathic tendencies."

"But those don't apply to _you_ , so...I'm still sorry."

She shook her head. "I don't need you to apologize. What's done is done. Just keep hating yourself and get me out of here. And we can call it even."

He snagged an asparagus from her plate, bit the top half off and chewed while he talked. "Really? That's all you want from me?"

"For now."

"Aren't you mad at me?" He stuffed the rest of the asparagus in his mouth and appeared to swallow it whole.

"No," she said, and Kai perked until she finished, "I'm sad at you." And she felt him wilt. She got up and poured herself a glass of wine, not ignorant to his concerned eyes on the bottle as she poured. He didn't want her to drink. Just to spite him she'd have a second glass.

"Well," Kai got out of his stool and collected his camera. With a nonchalance she could tell was feigned, he said, " _C'est la vie_ , right Bon?"

Bonnie only glared after him as he exited the kitchen. She stalked back to her plate and paused when she caught sight of her own miserable face in the developed Polaroid photograph he had left sitting there on the bar. She hardly recognized herself.

* * *

Kai finished tucking Bonnie's wrapped Christmas presents, along with some Polaroid pictures, into her suitcase.

" _Invisique_ ," he whispered before zipping it up and returning it back to the exact spot he found it.

He slipped out of her room and into his, where the bedsheets, blankets and pillows were still a bloody scene. A shiver crawled up his spine. That was the spot where he'd thought he lost her. He couldn't look at it.

Rushing to get himself out of there, he grabbed all of his things and dumped them into his bag. It was probably pointless to pack, he knew. But better to stay under her radar and look like he was ready to take on the real world again.

On his way down the hall he had to stop and lean against the wall. Memories, like poltergeists, from the last few weeks were mucking up his mind. This particular instant, however, seemed intent on destroying him. For a second he couldn't see where he was going because his senses were overcome by the memory of chasing her down the highway right after he'd flipped his switch.

He remembered catching her, loving the little ways she showed her fear, tics she probably didn't even realize she had. He remembered tasting her cunt and thinking at the time how much he wanted to bite it, but now he was thinking how awful that would be. He was thinking of how she trembled in pleasure, and he had the capacity to wonder if she _liked_ that he was her undoing. To wonder if she would have liked him to do that again, and why he didn't.

The memory let go of him and he braced himself against the wall. He shook it off and resumed his trip down the hallway when he found himself swayed again by a new kind of gravity erupting from his brain, and he fell blind to reality by the memory of laughing in her face when she wanted to be kissed in that club in New York City. And he felt like jerk, and then time sped up and he was feeding on her. As if he was actually back in the moment, he felt her blood rejuvenating him, heard her sounds of discomfort creating his own newfound discomfort. Time sped again and she was collapsing on the sidewalk outside, and his heart twisted in terror. After so much denial, he could admit it: it was his fault. He killed her, not oblivious to the fact but making it damn advantageous that she couldn't be permanently killed. He watched her crumple into yet another death and yelled out in the dark New York City sky.

The sounds of his own hoarse yelling ripped him out of his mind and he was back in reality, actually screaming. He panted, slid to the hardwood floor to lean against the wall and reconnected with silence.

" _Are you okay?_ " he heard, called from below. And he banged his fist twice on the floor in response.

Leaning his head back against the wall, he groaned. It wasn't like he'd forgotten any of these things. His mind was already over-processing them and churning them to pure guilt, so why were the flashbacks necessary?

"Fucking recovery my ass," he muttered to himself, "This is torture."

He waited a moment to see if another flashback would be swinging him along for the ride and when nothing happened, he got to his feet. He needed to lie down on the couch. If he was certain about anything, it was that his random attack-trips down memory lane weren't through with him yet.

* * *

Night fell and Bonnie delayed bedtime with overly meticulous packing. She figured that if she folded the clothes that weren't meant to be folded, she could fit everything she really wanted into her one suitcase. It wouldn't be too hard of a task since she had initially packed so little back in Mystic Falls. The difficult part, which she let consume an hour of her time, was the process of elimination. Which designer clothes could she actually picture herself wearing in the real world? Which unrealistic pieces were still worth hanging onto?

When she thought she had it all figured out, she changed out of her dress and into short shorts and a t shirt. There was nothing left for her to do but fall back on her bed, stare at the ceiling and wait to fall asleep. But she couldn't. Her nerves wouldn't quit firing. She felt like she could run a lap around the property and still feel restless.

She wondered what Kai was up to. The last time she saw him, he was lying face down on the couch with big pillow over his head. She was only passing and hadn't stopped to talk to him. Now it was sometime around midnight and she still couldn't feel him in the next room. Maybe he was watching a movie downstairs.

She turned on her side and squeezed the blanket in her hands. Her chest hurt.

She couldn't picture herself walking around modern day Mystic Falls. Not after everything sh'e been through here. What if she changed more than she realized? For the worse? What if it was so bad that her friends rejected her? What if Damon was outraged at her survival? What if he really did hunt her down? She'd kill him. But what if her friends shunned her for that? ...What if Mystic Falls wasn't _home_ anymore?

Bonnie clutched her chest. Something was catching up with her. It was swelling and worming its way through her upper body, pushing on her vitals. Her breath turned shallow and her heart beat slow.

What if she didn't want to go home? What if she shouldn't? After all these months of madness, her mind curdling between all the solitude and one-on-one time with someone like Kai, maybe she was just better off here.

 _Stop it, stop it, stop it, you're going home._

Kai. He walked all over her thoughts again.

This was their last night in the cottage, maybe in the prison world. And depending on how things changed when they ascended back to the real world, it might be the last night she would ever spend in the same multi-mile radius. Something about that possibility made her anxious; not to rush ahead to that point, but to delay it, just like she had delayed going to bed. Because, as anticipated, she was not easily falling asleep. Maybe she was anticipating that she would not easily adjust to a life without Kai.

She started grinding her teeth. This was all nonsense. She'd spent too much time wanting nothing to get away from him.

And yet...

She currently wanted nothing more than to be in the same room with him. To hear that second breath and know it was his, to feel his rocky magic clash with hers. Just in case. Just in case, when they got home, he decided to go away, or she came to her senses and banished him.

Would it be wrong to cuddle with the monster who'd killed her the night before? She didn't care. She wanted to be held. Because that thing, that wicked blackness inside her, remained. It couldn't be killed, wouldn't dissipate with her death; if anything, it had grown. The sadness, it seemed, was eating her from the inside out.

Maybe Kai could help.

* * *

He had never looked upon her with more self-loathing.

These flashbacks weren't a one-time edit. He relived his time off over and dreadfully over again, each time ending the same way: looking down at her limp body and noticing her scar. He didn't even see it the night before. Not when she first took her shirt off, not when he straddled her, not when she straddled him, not when he sucked her life dry. And now he was seeing it, repeatedly, like a lesson that could not be learned.

He was everything she never wanted, and nothing she needed.

He remembered when she showed him that twisted knot of skin that he caused, when she confronted him. And he remembered liking it a little, feeling like he'd made his mark on his girl, his territory, his home. That was her. But now it was different. He regretted wielding the knife that caused it and he regretted liking the look of his seal on her fate. She should be free in more ways than getting out of this prison world. He thought if he had a way to compel his existence and these last few years out of her mind, then maybe he would. Was there a spell for it? He didn't know yet.

Meanwhile, all he could do was bury his face in the ass of the couch and try not to claw his hair out while he relived and revised every unsavory glance he ever threw her way.

He panicked when he heard her footsteps overhead, descending the stairs and then the careful pads that came up behind him. They stilled a few feet back and for a moment nothing happened and he considered it was his haunted imagination. Then he felt the pathetic blow of a couch pillow on the back of his head.

Hoping he could mask the suffering he was in the middle of, he turned his head slightly to acknowledge her staticky presence.

"What?" he croaked.

From the corner of his eye he could see her put her hands on her hips.

"I can't sleep," her voice said, on the edge of anger.

"What's the matter?"

He watched her form cross left and sit on the second couch opposite him.

"I don't know. I guess I'm nervous."

"Well go back to bed and count sheep," he said and settled his face back down into the cushion. He mumbled into it, "Big day tomorrow."

"Kai," she urged behind him. He felt the vibration of her voice pass through his body like she was right there. A wishful sensation. "There's a chance that Damon might come after me."

He lifted his head again to say with clarity and intention, "I won't let him."

"Neither will I. I'm not asking you to protect me, I'm just- I can't sleep. I came down here to see what you're doing but now that I know you're just sleeping... What are you doing on the couch anyway?"

"My bed is covered in blood."

"Right. Well can you, um...do you think you could...do you wanna sleep with me? I mean, in my bed, um...it just helps when someone else is there. I'll actually be able to sleep and you won't have to put up with he couch."

 _Yes, yes, yes._

He shifted just enough on the couch to lie so he could see her more clearly. What he saw was a pair of bright and longing eyes, in the middle of noticing his bare shoulders. Did she like them? He'd forgotten he was shirtless until her curious eyes reminded him. Should he let a little more of the throw covering him fall and show her more of his chest? Should he tease?

"I don't know if that's such good idea, Bon."

He bit his tongue harshly after he said it. But he had to be something strong, even it if it lasted a minute and he melted into regret the instant she left.

"Just until I fall asleep," she insisted.

"No...I shouldn't. We shouldn't."

The expression on her face tore him. So disappointed. He was letting her down.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to hurt you again," he excused, knowing well enough that he wouldn't hurt her if she begged him to. "So...I'm going to keep my distance."

Yet while she sat across from him, accepting his rejection on top of all other crimes he'd committed against her, his mind was calm. No flashbacks threatened his grip on time and space. He didn't know if it was her or coincidence, but he had to place some faith in her comforting aura. While the sweet unease of love tended to find him whenever she was near, he made home in it.

"Oh...ok," she said, and stood up to make her exit.

"Wait," he sighed, taking a long blink of shame. She waited.

He sat up and cleared his throat. Collecting the throw and tossing it aside, he said, "I'm sorry. I can control myself. Of course I'll help you get to sleep."

The energy in the cottage grew lighter as he followed her upstairs. He watched her climb into her bed and he slithered under her blanket after. She laid on her left side and faced the other direction, where the open window let in a calm draft and a serene view, but she settled in the middle of the bed and he had no room if he wasn't going to be a big spoon. He was content simply to lie behind her and breathe her air but she ordered in the smallest voice, "Hold me." And he was happy to put his arm around her.

Her heartbeat audibly picked up. He felt the fingers of what had to be her left hand grasp his and interlace, and she brought it up to her face just to have their locked hands near. Every breath she took coasted out across his knuckles.

The only problem now was that he would have trouble sleeping.

His recovery process seemed to stay on a temporary pause, but now he was thinking about this maybe being the last night he could hold her like this, the last night he could see her, be with her, smell her, feel her heart skip every time he moved, wonder if she was wondering about him and if he should do something about that, and it could be his last chance to kiss her. If she let him. If he had the balls to try.

Before it had the chance to drive him crazy, she spoke.

"Kai..."

Relived, he smiled into her hair.

"Yes?"

"I'm not as afraid of Damon as I am of being a different person when I get back."

He smoothed his thumb along one of her fingers, thinking about the intimacy he could express to her with just their hands.

"Everyone changes."

"But it's something else. I can't describe it."

"Try."

Her fingers slipped out from his as she let his hand go and rolled over to face him. She glued her palms together and stuck her hands underneath her pillow as she nestled into it and gazed intensely at him. He felt like he was about to hear slumber party secrets he couldn't be trusted with.

"These past few months, I've just been feeling so out of it," she said. He could see she was having a hard time articulating this. Vague terms like ' _out of it_ ' meant it could be worse than she was letting on. Then she came right out and reminded him, "I've killed myself. More than once. And I asked you to kill me. And more often than not, I've enjoyed dying. Because when I'm dead I can't feel this...this _feeling_ , inside me."

"You're feeling a feeling?" he quipped.

"I'm sad, Kai. More than sad. But I can't really decide why. Bad things have happened to me, and I've grieved. But I've never felt like this. It's bad, sometimes I feel like I can't move. When I can, I just think about dying for a quick fix. When I went down to get you I thought about throwing myself down the stairs just to break every bone in my body so you'd have to kill me for everything to reset. And I would have some time out of my own mind." Her lips trembled ominously.

He pressed his mouth into a fine line and nodded miserably as she spoke.

"Sounds right."

"What?"

"I lost track of all the times I killed myself in 1994. It's this place, Bonnie. It's your mind. I wish I could say it'll go away when you get out but...I don't know if its' that easy. Something about living in a place like this, it...it does rewire you a bit."

"Do you think- can you siphon it out of me?"

"Bonnie, I..." he faltered. He wasn't sure if he could let her down again.

"Please, Kai."

"I can't. Those feelings. The sadness... It's not magic. It's mental."

"Am I crazy?" she pleaded to know, wide-eyed and raspy with a tightening throat.

"No. No. But I'm the last person to talk to about brains, _I'm_ crazy. I'm sure your friends will be able to help. Or maybe a psychologist. I'm glad you talked to me about this. You _should_ talk about it, when you get home. I want you to get help, because suicide is a little more permanent on the outside."

"Oh no," she said, the tears finally breaking loose. "I'm suicidal. And I've been drinking... _so much_. God, what is wrong with me?"

"Nothing. It's ok. We just need to get you home."

" _What's wrong with me?_ " she sobbed.

Kai pushed himself up on his elbow. "Hey, look at me," he demanded, holding her chin tight in place so she couldn't turn her face away. Her wet eyes locked on his and more tears were pushed out of their hiding place. "Nothing is wrong with you," he said with the firmest tone he could use without getting mean. And when she pressed her eyes shut and the rest of her face wrinkled into despair, he kissed her forehead.

She was falling apart and he didn't think he'd ever seen her so helpless. Maybe he could kiss it better.

He let go of her face and she turned it aside, so he kissed her throbbing neck. He cupped her left shoulder and pushed until she rolled onto her back. To avoid his own hunger, he moved his kiss to her chest, stretching the neck hole of her shirt to expose the skin. When her chest was sufficiently kissed, he pulled her shirt from the bottom and burrowed his head underneath.

Her breasts, warm and soft, cushioned his temples and he laid many more kisses in a staggered line down her sternum. He laid an especially considerate kiss on her scar. He sucked her hiccuping diaphragm into his mouth and migrated downward still, eventually coming up from her loose t shirt and pushing it high up to expose her whole front. Her belly shook with sobs and even more with nerves; he could tell by the way she stiffened against his mouth that his touch unnerved her. Mid-kiss he glanced up to her face where her hands were balled into fists, one tucked tightly into her chest and the other resting over her mouth where she could bite the knuckle of her thumb. He felt her concentration on him, though the fit of tears wasn't finished with her. And he wanted desperately both to help her get it out of her system and to make it stop. It was, after all, his fault.

He kissed her belly button, and in a half moon from hip to hip. Her legs were fidgeting, knees glued together and raised, blocking him from further descent. But the crying...he needed to fix it. He shouldered her blanket upward and over his head as he ducked underneath. Her whole body turned to stone. Completely submerged in the blanket, it was just him and her lower half, in the dark. And he couldn't breathe but he would gasp for air as long as it took to make this girl happy.

He peeled the waistband of her shorts down from the hanger of her hips. He needed to convince her legs to spread just a little, enough for the shorts to slide between them so he could get them down to her feet. For a moment, she kept her thighs clamped tight and the shorts couldn't be taken off without force, which he exercised great patience not to use. He lowered his face and drew a line with the tip of his nose from her belly button to the band of her underwear, stopping to exhale a hot breath over her pubic bone. When she finally loosened, he graciously slid the shorts down.

Her panties were more difficult. He could hear her outside the blanket, still trying to stifle quiet sobs and he felt sorry, and evil, and uncertain whether this was the right method to calm her down but he had already started it and hadn't tried to stop him yet. When he curled his fingers beneath the next obstacle, her sobs turned to shivering sobs.

He withdrew his hand and moved up her body to emerge from the blanket at her shoulders. Her expression was one of wild confusion. While she was releasing herself in the divulgence of her mentality, it seemed his intimacy had stirred other emotions in her. He looked into her glossy emerald eyes and felt as though someone pushed a sewing pin into his heart.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

She blinked and sniffed.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked.

She sniffed again and wiped her face with her fist. He thumbed a stray lock of tear-matted hair away from her face and let his fingers comb across her scalp in a way meant to calm her, but then he felt creepy. Bonnie, however, shook her head _No_.

"Do you want me to keep going?"

She nodded her head _Yes_.

He knuckled a tear waiting for its turn at the corner of her eye.

"Say something."

She nodded again and softened her weepy eyes at him.

"I want you," she whispered.

The pin in his heart disappeared entirely. He wouldn't have believed what he heard if it wasn't for the determined shine in her pupils, and the demanding arc in her eyebrows. Even while tears dribbled from her eyelids, her certainty could not be mistaken. And he resumed his quest to end those tears.

Gently, sweetly, he lowered his mouth onto hers. It wasn't a course of action he needed time to choose; the moment guided him. For wanting him, she got a kiss. For kissing her, perhaps he would get a pair of panties.

Bonnie opened her lips to deepen the kiss, her tongue finding its shy way into his mouth. She tasted of wine and desire. His heart began to hammer for more and he could hear hers mimicking. It occurred to him to feel glad that he caved in to following her upstairs, against his better judgement. With everything he'd put her through in the last weeks, this exceeded all expectations.

Bonnie tilted her head away from the kiss, slowly breaking their mouths apart. He was left unsatisfied but her thighs parted just slightly. He was being beckoned downward to finish what he had started.

He dipped back under the blanket and inched down to eye level with her panties as he slid them down her legs. When he helped her beautiful little feet out through the holes and her bottom was officially bare, he hovered over her cunt. He could smell her arousal, and her fear, and now that nothing needed passage she'd gone back to clamping her thighs and magnetized knees and fidgeting with apprehension.

He used his chin to pry her thighs apart again. Maybe it was his stubble scratching her that made it easier, but with some pressure she spread her legs. But he wasn't blind to the shivers that still rippled through her. They set him off on his own, for the unbearable magnitude of his love. This might be the last time he could prove it. He had to make it last. He had to make it count. Slow motion was paramount in savoring her.

He pressed his lips to her outer folds, taking time to inhale and remember the chemistry of her scent. Her heart, overhead, hounded him. He closed his mouth into a kiss and at the soft, blood-warm feel of her labia, his dick started its expansion in his boxers. She wouldn't feel it, wouldn't know that he was already burning for greedily more than this. She'd said that she wanted him, but whether that _want_ extended beyond oral pleasure this time was not yet clear. He couldn't be sure if she wanted everything. Not yet. And he couldn't assume. If she did want it, it couldn't be like the last time, or the first time. Not rough. Not hurried. This wasn't a quickie on the couch, this wasn't a public point-driving fuck. This was goodbye.

Kai opened his mouth and stuck his tongue in between her pulsing lips. He tasted her sap and grew irreversibly hard, the kind of hard that wouldn't relax until it got what it wanted, and it wanted to paint a new world inside her. He flicked his tongue up in search of her clit and when he found it, she squeezed her thighs back together with his head between them.

He was caught.

He wrapped his right arm around her left thigh and secured the leg down against the bed before licking his way down the ravine of her labia, into her vagina and back up to her clit again. She moaned and he noticed that her sobs had subsided, replaced by the shakiness of wanting him.

Beneath the covers, her hands found his head. One weaved into his hair and the other flattened against the side of his face, latching around at his jaw and urging back downward. If he had been so lucky to actually marry her in this world, he was sure he would have done this at least twice a day. Burying his face in her cunt was almost as good as burying his dick in her, just for her adorable inability to control herself.

He lunged his body into the next tonguing of her hole and she groaned. Her hands traveled down to his shoulders and squeezed, and her thighs tensed around him. He flicked her clit once more and she dragged her fingernails up his shoulder blades, so hard he could feel her begging his last layer of flesh. He was going to bleed tonight.

Her right knee came up at his side and he felt her toes digging under the waistband on his boxers. Her foot slipped under the fabric and slid against his skin, curving down his hip and around his ass. His waistband was caught on her ankle and being pulled down. She was more skilled at undressing him than herself.

He smiled into her folds and felt her jerk at the feeling of his teeth. Quickly so as not to frighten her, he closed his grin and dragged his mouth along the inner thigh of the leg that was working his boxers off. The pulse in her femoral artery buzzed against his half open lips and began to clobber in his ear drums.

Something in him that he did not want to awaken pricked to life. His throat started to itch and his gums burned.

" _No_ ," he breathed against her quivering flesh.

He dropped his head, placed a hand on her belly for support and crawled up for air, exhaling loud and inhaling long when he got some. He needed to distract himself with something other than her raging pulse, the hairy little sounds of her goosebumps rising, the threat of thirst every time he looked down at her delicious skin. So he arched his back, reaching below, and maneuvered his boxers the rest of the way down.

 _This is happening, this is happening._

He bit back against the descent of his own fangs.

 _You just ate, you monster._

Bonnie ripped the boxers out of his hands and threw them across the room. Which made him smile. And she widened her eyes at him.

"Kai, your teeth," she tumbled into telling. "And your eyes..."

He snapped his head to face another direction, gritting his molars and blinking away at the terrible truth. Vampires were not designed to love. His love was residue of humanity. But he wouldn't give up the fight.

He turned back to her and thought he could see the reflection of hunger's black veins in her shiny eyes, his threat, and the fear in the slant of her eyebrows, her defense.

"It's ok," he panted against the saliva collecting at the back of his throat, "It's ok."

She nodded and he felt her hand skim into the hair on the back of his head. Never in his life had he felt so supported; she was _with him_ in this. And he didn't know why or how she could find so much empathy in herself; he surely was not owed her consideration.

"I'm sorry," he burst out, confused and infuriated by the level of hunger now consuming him. Even though he was back and in control of his emotions, somehow his need to taste her blood again was stronger than ever. Was it having taken his fill the night before? Had he hit a threshold that now rendered any lesser amount of blood unsatisfactory? Was he on the Road to Ripper? Because all he wanted was _more, more_ and _more_ , and it hadn't even begun. "I can't," he confessed weakly, moving to leave her bed, "We can't."

"Hey," she cooed, stopping him, hooking him by the neck and pulling against his leave, "It's ok. You're gonna be ok."

" _You_ won't be ok if I don't go back to the couch, _right now_."

"I will be ok. Just-" she paused to run her thumb over the dark wriggling veins under his eyelid. He watched her eyes brim with compassion and wanted to eat them just to keep something so good so close to himself. "Just stay with me," she whispered, continuously rubbing over the veins. He could see the fear in her but she never looked away; she looked straight into him, into his eyes that he knew were black and red with monstrosity. How could she stare straight into the true face of evil with such comfort?

"There," the smooth sound of her relief said. He no longer felt her finger pads bumping along veins on his cheekbones. His gums weren't hurting. Hunger receded.

Moments passed and she was patient with him. He wanted to say so many things, mainly the truth. That it wasn't terribly likely he would be able to escape with her when this world collapsed, and he wished she'd hold his black heart for the time they had left.

"Don't move," he said, and took the precaution of time to lower his mouth like a heavy burden that might crush her. He kept his eyes open when his lips landed, delicately, onto hers. And he kissed her like he was made of glass, fragmented and jagged. He made her shirt disappear as he let his body meld to hers, chest to breasts, belly to belly. His unrelenting erection beamed between her thighs, pointing up at its goal. He wanted to satisfy it, complete the momentary mission his sexual and romantic desires were set on. Yet he knew the sooner he entered her, the sooner this would all end; they'd fall asleep, wake up the next day, and all waking focus would be on escape. To delay the moment their bodies connected would be to prolong his time with her like this, when all the world was dark and nothing mattered but each other, and the shared, intimate anticipation of when and how this soft kiss would evolve into sex.

Her fingers scratched comforting lines back and forth on his scalp while their tongues met again. Kai felt her hips underneath him rocking subtly, occasionally lifting off from the bed, in search of him. And though his dick laid heavy, right there between her thighs, he held himself miles away from contact with her cunt. She writhed beneath him, chafing her thighs together and in some instances succeeding in trapping his dick in the friction. When it happened, he couldn't stop himself form moaning into her mouth before twisting free. But she grew increasingly frustrated the longer he withheld pleasure, and she eventually expressed her urgency to have him in not so subtle thrusts of her hips against his. She wouldn't stop kissing him to say so but it was evident that she couldn't, and wouldn't, wait much longer.

The desperation was mutual. Every breath she took, every inch she moved, and every little noise she made into the hollow of their kiss drove him madder. His blood pulsed viciously to the tip of his dick and seemingly nowhere else as he grew lightheaded with arousal. At this point he suspected he was so horny that his hunger wouldn't even dare come up against the fury with which he needed to fuck. Bonnie could fall off the bed, wound herself and bleed all over him, and he doubted it would distract him in the slightest from his horniness.

Finally it all became too much.

* * *

Consequences.

She remembered considering what those might be if, and when, she took him inside her again.

The tip of Kai's cock began to spread her folds.

Bonnie slid across a rainbow of thoughts and emotions varying from _God, what are we doing?_ to _Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me!_ to _Who am I?_ to _What are we?_ to _This can't be the last time_.

His mouth, warm and wet on hers, froze in concentration as his tip pressed against her inner lips and teased the slick entrance to her vessel. She opened her eyes to find his, two inches away, just as wide and watchful. A silent exchange, from whose pair of pupils it originated she couldn't tell, passed back and forth. Before she could decipher it, her core was being stretched.

He took the plunge, however slowly, and pushed himself into her shallows. In the flesh of her cunt she felt every contour to his shape and committed it to memory.

What would the consequence of that be? Loyalty?

She noticed he was holding his breath, and so was she, as his head slid deeper, deeper, deeper until a sharp pain warned her that he had bumped the end of her, and she squeaked.

"Am I hurting you?" he asked as he began to slide the other other direction.

 _How unlike him to ask._ She shook her head and said, "Nothing I can't handle," with a twist of a smile and a turn of a frown, because she wanted this to be her every night. His gentleness was confirming everything her feelings had been hinting at over the course of their entrapment together. Now that he was him, and especially after her feelings wouldn't stop developing when he wasn't himself, she knew what it was that exchanged in their eyes now and back in his bedroom in Portland.

He was redeemable. More than that, he was lovable. And these were the consequences. Her chest ached like it was her heart he was fucking.

 _Fucking._ Again the idea of it felt beneath them, and this. She was sure, this time, they weren't fucking. By the agonizing slowness with which he pushed into her, and she accepted him, and their hips moved in coordination, she knew. This was making love.

Because she had to see, Bonnie looked down between their sticky bodies to watch her petals devour Kai's length inch by inch. As her stomach muscles tightened with her craning neck, everything else below seemed to tighten. And she wasn't asking for it and she wasn't ready for it, but the shockwave came.

Uncontrollable little moans seeped from her lips and she bowled the top of her head into Kai's chest, where she heard him chuckle. Eyes squeezed shut with the force of her orgasm, she blindly gripped his side with one hand and his shoulder with the other. All his muscles, it seemed, were working underneath her palms. Working to please her. When her orgasm came to its crescendo, he pressed his thumb to her clit, causing her to howl out and arch her back as her pleasure prolonged. She didn't know such a thing could be done. It almost seemed the good feeling rippling through her body wouldn't stop, and it quickly turned overwhelming.

Inside her, his cock plunged hilt-deep and started to twitch, every thrust afterward increasing in force and speed. He groaned in her ear and the carnal sound of it set her off on another round of tingles and moans. His thumb manned her clit with dedication, but she couldn't keep herself from slamming her hips upward against his one more time to regain the length of cock she gradually lost as his orgasm progressed. Everything, she noticed, turned hot as hell; his breath in her ear, the skin on her cheeks and forehead, his fingertips on her ribs, her surprised clit, the consequences, and his seed pooling into her body.

She was about to blubber some absentminded exclamation and quickly forgot what it was after his mouth crashed onto hers for what felt like an appropriately joyous kiss. His magic cooled upon hers, calmed hers, cooed, making her feel like there were four presences in the room and she'd just been a part of some witchy teamwork to climax. She felt bonded to Kai, stronger than ever before. Maybe it was biological, because she was a woman and he was a man and they had just done the thing that men and women do, like all creatures.

Yes, in all probability, it was just biology. But it felt more like magic. Because her heart pounded for him to hold her tighter, to kiss her longer, and to stay. Because the room, while so dark, seemed brighter. And because she had discovered something new to be afraid of.

Not only was Kai redeemable and lovable.

"Grams" had accused her of lying in her last dream. Bonnie knew now, consequentially, that her accuser was right. And she wasn't even falling anymore. She'd hit the bottom.

She was in love with the twisted bastard. So deep in love it was _fucking excruciating_.


	21. Chapter 21

_The morning after_.

To Kai it felt more like the morning before losing this than than the morning after having it. He woke hours earlier than Bonnie but pretended to sleep, the longer to lie beside her and listen to her breathe. He listened, and he inhaled the scent of her hair, of her skin that smelled like sleep, and her weirdly still minty morning breath, all so endearing. Every now and then he had to open his eyes and take her in, and relish, and admire, and worship, and miss her already.

* * *

"Say ' _Bye bye totes adorbs Christmas cottage that I'm glad we had sex in at least once_ ,'" Kai told her as he loaded their luggage into the trunk of the car.

Bonnie turned to face Éternité, inhaled big, sighed comfortably and recited, "Bye bye totes adorbs Christmas cottage that I'm glad we had sex in at least once."

The next two hours were spent driving in a silence colder than called for. When they arrived at the airport, Kai went right to prepping the plane. Bonnie waited in the terminal and made herself a latte, the way Kai had taught her in one brief stop at Parisian cafe. She sat at a table in the hauntingly empty airport, sipping through the hot foam and obsessively smoothing out her navy blue going-home dress while she thought over the previous night and the heavy revelation she'd come to. Now that it was light outside and she was dressed and espresso ran down her throat at an awakening temperature, she could conclude that her revelation was neither here nor there. Maybe she loved Kai. But it didn't mean anything, wasn't going to matter when they returned home, wasn't going to change anything between them. The whole captor and captive dynamic wouldn't make for such a great story if anyone ever asked how their relationship came to be. So there would be no relationship.

Nor would there be any rumination.

* * *

When the plane was ready, Kai found Bonnie frowning at the airport cafe and made himself a large coffee. Not that he needed it. He only clung to those human habits for the now impossible nostalgia fighting every Heretic molecule in his body.

On the plane, she joined him in the cockpit and strapped herself into the co-pilot's seat. He was pleased but he wasn't about to admit it; she looked irritated. For the duration of the flight, he taught her the recitation that would open the bridge portal as he died. He made her repeat after him and he listened fiercely for accuracy while he noted her hands, whitening as they clutched the armrests of her seat.

He understood that she was anxious. He sympathized. While she was braving an amateur flight in anticipation of rejoining society, the minutes were counting down to his death. It was hard to tell whether it felt much different from the thousand other times he knew he was going to die. Though it would be permanent this time, it was for her, and he was experiencing a familiar difficulty in finding fear anywhere inside himself. In actuality, he was beginning to feel quite old. The prospect of total nothingness didn't exactly frighten him.

* * *

"Somebody's salty."

"You would be too if you'd been held captive for almost two years of your life," Bonnie snapped, and bit her tongue almost as fast. "I'm sorry."

Twenty miles from Mystic Falls, the trusty black Corvette began to sputter pleas for gas and they had to stop. Kai, standing on the other side of the cashier's counter, looked up from what he was doing just to offer her a forgiving scowl.

"It's ok," he said.

Bonnie shook her head and crossed her arms.

"I still don't think it's right."

"You'll thank me."

"But how will anyone explain the sudden emergence of duplicate bills floating around the economy?"

"They won't. They probably won't even notice. And anyway, who's gonna trace the anomaly back to a little Bonnie Bennett in Tinytown, Virginia? _No one_."

She watched, hopeful that he was right, as Kai located a rubber band on the counter and began stretching it around a large stack of bills from the cash register.

"Plus," he added, "This is only like three hundred dollars. It's not like we robbed a bank. Although that would be a good idea."

"No."

"Hmm, yeah. I vote we do. You might need it."

"I won't use it. So you might as well put that stack, and any other money you _steal_ , into _your_ bag. Then _you_ can explain to the FBI how you got it all from a magical Groundhog Day in a parallel universe that you made with your powers."

Kai sighed and looked, for a moment, listless.

* * *

Mystic Falls was expectedly the same as they left it. Lonely and dark with night.

Kai made a quick stop at the Mystic Falls bank, against Bonnie's moral protests, and ran out with a few tight stacks of hundred dollar bills, yelling, "Drive, drive, drive!" Bonne ignored this and stewed in the passenger seat while he packed the money straight into the trunk.

"Do you need to stop at home for anything?" he asked as he buckled himself back into the driver's seat.

 _Home_ , she thought, and smiled, and panicked.

"Grimoires," she said. As much as the thought of getting right to it and ditching this hell blinded her with fearful joy, she wanted to be smart about it. If college was hopeless, then she needed a plan. Whether or not it involved all the grimoires she had added to Grams' collection throughout her journey in this place, they could always come in handy. Maybe she could be a librarian of sorts. A grimoire librarian. Or a keeper of relics. A keeper of knowledge. She wanted to plan for a life and a profession more mystical than not. It suited her. After all she'd been through, she knew it would be harder adjusting to a life where she had to hide. She didn't want to hide, didn't have the energy, didn't care to protect the ignorant wellbeing of the general public all of a sudden.

Kai drove to her grandmother's house waited patiently while she collected the spellbooks. When she came trudging into the foyer with another suitcase, he asked, "Hungry?" And her stomach groaned at the thought.

Escape was further stalled while they cooked and sat down to eat a decided last meal of spaghetti at the kitchen table.

* * *

"What are your plans?" Bonnie asked before taking a sophisticated bite.

"My plans…for?"

"When we get back."

"Dairy farmer," Kai shot out after half a second of thought.

"Be serious."

"I am. That or magician. The professional kind. I could perform in Vegas and blow people's minds, good looks aside. Like that Criss Angel Mindfreak guy."

"Kai."

"I hear boy bands are a thing again. I can sing."

" _Kai_."

"What? What are _your_ plans?" he asked defensively, and muttered, " _Judging my aspirations_ …"

"I was asking _you_. Doesn't mean I have my own answer yet," she grumbled, stabbing a forkful of noodles.

"Any ideas?"

"I don't know. I might see if I can get back into Whitmore. Chances are slim. And anyway, if Caroline's still there she'd be in the middle of her senior year and I'd be way behind."

"There's always community college."

"Yeah, maybe."

"What about a job? You know, once you blow that three hundred bucks on ice cream and dresses."

Bonnie scowled and shrugged. She didn't want to say her thoughts out loud, but it was possible that Alaric wasn't teaching at Whitmore anymore. It was possible that he wasn't in Virginia. She knew if it were her, she'd spend her life staying as far as possible from the grounds on which her pregnant wife was murdered. She wondered if he even survived the mourning.

 _Who could?_

"I doubt I'm qualified for much more than flipping burgers. Without a degree, or an actual previous job to put on an application, or any idea what I'm doing… I'm already overwhelmed by how much I need to catch up."

"Hey. Flipping burgers is a highly undervalued profession. Burgers are delicious."

"Spongebob Squarepants was happy, I guess."

"Who?" Kai asked.

"Oh my god, you're kidding," she said, but when she looked up at him he seemed genuinely confused.

"Whatever. At least you already know how to use the internet," Kai offered, wiggling his eyebrows. Bonnie wanted to laugh but felt too sour to even smile.

"I do know of a strip club outside of town that's always looking for smart, hardworking dropouts," she brought up matter-of-factly.

Kai snorted in his soda and then winced in pain.

"Go ahead, laugh. But I'm only half joking."

Kai set down his soda and eyed her meaningfully for a moment. She had to look away and scrape her plate with her fork just to suppress the thoughts she didn't want to have. Kai spoke anyway.

"I predict that the seas will part for you to find the life you want."

Bonnie let her fork clatter out of her hand and chuckled mirthlessly.

"The real world isn't so easy for people who play by the rules."

"Isn't it?" he smirked.

"No, it isn't."

She scooted her chair back from the table and stood up with her plate.

"Of course you'll have an adjustment phase," he rushed out, touching her arm with his hand. A gesture that usually preceded a siphoning. She waited for the pain but all she felt was his thumb sliding back and forth, and his words.

"Given everything that's happened, you're allowed. But when New Year's Eve hits…it's gonna be a new year. And you know what I think?"

Bonnie pursed her lips and bucked the heel of her boot into the hardwood just to hear it knock.

"What," she snapped.

"It's gonna be _your_ year."

* * *

All was quiet in the woods.

The only souls who could peep weren't speaking as they dragged their luggage through the trees. Kai had said that even though it was probably also midnight in the real Mystic Falls, _you never know who might be skulking around_. It was best to appear out of thin air where no one was likely to witness it. She trusted his expertise on the subject.

She had asked if he was taking her back to the cave, where she, Kai and Damon had all respectively used the concentrated power of the May 10th eclipse to escape the 1994 prison world. But apparently the only celestial power needed to activate the bridge portal was the basic blanket of sky they'd be standing under at any given time. All they needed was the spell, and one dying Kai Parker.

When they hiked deep enough into the trees, Kai stopped and dropped his bag to the ground and Bonnie hers. She stood still and waited for instruction, pinching the bottom hem of her dress as it blew in the breeze. He watched.

"So…" she stirred.

His mouth pressed into a frown and his hands found his hips. Bonnie suddenly got the sense that there were so many things to say and she didn't know the right words or how to catch them from her brain and put them in her mouth.

"Will you miss any part of this?" he asked. She heard the slightest waver in his voice.

Her immediate answer was _No._ Instead, wisely, she said, "I won't know until I do. Maybe then I'll let you know."

Kai looked out into the distant blackness of the forest.

"Right."

"Are you ready?"

"No," he admitted. "I have just one more question."

"Well fucking shoot, I wanna go home."

He took a subtle step towards her and in the dead silence around them Bonnie thought she could hear every granule of dirt, every sprout, and every stem of fallen plantlife crunch beneath his shoe. Her eyes darted from the sound to his querying features.

"One last dance?"

She laughed a sharp and callous laugh.

"Really?"

"I know there's no music, but," he smiled and reached into his pocket, "Oh, wait. There is." And he pulled out his iPod. He started unraveling the earbuds while he studied her reaction. "Please, Bon? It is our thing, isn't it?"

"You want to slow dance with me in the middle of a dark forest like idiots?"

He shrugged and nodded.

It would be a terrible idea if she was going to keep her little secret at bay. If he took one more step, if he touched her, if he breathed on her, if he _kissed her_ …she would have a harder time convincing herself that none of it was real.

But the way he was smiling at her, practically beseeching her…she didn't want to say No. After what they'd done the night before, how his body made her body feel and how much it meant to her, she couldn't.

"Ugh," she groaned, "Fine. One song."

"Great," he muttered through his smile.

Bonnie closed the distance between them and took the earbud she was handed. They each inserted the little earphones into their ears and she watched Kai scroll through his music.

"Let's see if you know this," he said, and the song started while he stuck the iPod back into his pocket.

Bonnie closed her eyes and listened for familiarity in the guitar, and suddenly felt Kai's hands on her hips. She blinked and looked up at him to find his eyes blue and bold, not a trace of the smile that had been there seconds ago.

"I don't recognize it," she admitted, reaching up and clasping her wrists behind his neck.

"I guess you wouldn't, would you?"

Kai began to move in slow time to the song, taking her body with his.

"Because I've never heard this song before?"

"Because I had to finish that part of the crossword for you."

She opened her mouth in remembrance of the chill that danced from vertebrae to vertebrae the day she found that someone had completed her crossword puzzle for her in 1994.

"Yellow Ledbetter," she whispered, as the ever evasive answer dawned.

"Yellow Ledbetter," he confirmed.

"Huh."

"Yeah."

"It's nice."

"It is."

"Nicer than I expected."

"It would be."

Bonnie relaxed her lower body from the tension she'd been using to keep from getting too close to him. She couldn't hold herself so distant for an entire song; it didn't feel right.

"Listen," Kai said, and the earnest change in his tone caught her attention. "I don't need you to make me any promises. It's out of my reach, and I don't want you to do anything for me."

Bonnie bit her lip while she listened, sensing some kind of lecture coming up at the mention of promises. Having run out of small, stupid things to say about the song she'd never heard and might not want to hear ever again, she was prepared to sit back and feel the wrath of a Kai rant as it saved her from doing any more talking.

"I don't want you to stay out of trouble because I said so," he continued as his hands tightened, perhaps unintentionally, on her hips. "I'd want you to choose yourself first because _you_ say so. As much as it kills me that none of your friends have the decency to strap you down when you get all martyry, and as much as it kills me that you won't at least stuff my ears with candy and promise you won't be a _save-the-day-Sally_ anymore, you're right. You can't make any promises. All I want, all I need to know if I'm going to die with any sort of peace, is that you will go home and—"

"And give Damon an excruciating death?" Bonnie quoted.

"No. Well, maybe. But this isn't about him. It's about you, Bonnie. I just want you to start a life before you ever put yourself at risk again. You said you're the end of the Bennett line and that's a fucking travesty. I want you to revive the Bennett line. Have the family you've been missing. Start a coven. Take Mystic Falls back."

"You've obviously never lived in a town with a vampire infestation."

"Well I'm not going to be the one who tells you to give up and walk away. That's not my style, I'm sure you've noticed."

"Merging with Luke really put you through a makeover, didn't it?"

"Why do you say that?"

"Sometimes you're not just a better version of you. You're actually capable of being a good person. _Sometimes_ ," she emphasized. "Most of the time you're just an ass."

"Thank you?"

"It wasn't a compliment. Just an observation. And…I promise."

"Come again?"

Bonne rolled her eyes and inadvertently stomped her next step.

"I promise I won't get involved in vampire drama anymore," she mumbled.

Kai's eyes twinkled as he grinned.

"Is that a for real promise or a hey-i'm-alone-in-the-woods-with-a-creepy-sociopath-under-pressure type of promise?"

"Both."

"Good girl."

"Ass."

The song in their ears slowed to a close and it was quiet again.

Bonnie stopped moving with Kai's rhythm and pulled the earphone out of her ear, trying to ignore the drooping expression on his face. But he began wrapping the cord around his iPod anyway, moping not so subtly over to his backpack anyway, kneeling and trading the iPod for a wooden stake anyway. Was it just her anticipation or was time moving faster? And condensing to a blip in retrospect? That first night when she broke down and bled herself for the sake of company, called him out from the darkness with the red dripping down her arm, laid eyes on him after what she knew now was a whole year, right before she watched the big bad wolf break her door down, then compromised and fed him for the first time…didn't feel so far in the past.

When he held the sharpened stake up, Bonnie's insides blanched. Her chest felt stiff as she watched him zip his bag and sling it over his shoulder, holding the stake close and ready for use in his grip.

She followed suit and attended her luggage, making sure that every bag was touching and bound together by the same rope spell she had used to bind Kai's hands in New York. She smoothed her dress, a tic she had become used to throughout the day, and flattened shaky palms over her thighs. She couldn't believe this. What if she fell out of this moment and woke up? What if she was still at the cottage in France and the last forty eight hours were all a death dream?

 _I'm going home_.

And this time was over. This period of misery, of having no company but Kai, of being unable to grow her hair out and _god,_ she was sick of her haircut, but it was over. Almost.

"Ok?" Kai asked. She detected his nerves at last. He swallowed, breathed through his nose, wouldn't stop looking at her.

"Ok," she nodded. She gripped onto the handle of her suitcase and they stepped close together.

"Here…" Kai held out his left hand, "Don't let me go, ok?"

Bonnie's heart spasmed. She grabbed his hand and squeezed him tight, not sure how violent their trip through time and space would be, and she assured, "I won't."

He blew out a breath he had been holding and glanced to the stake in his hand, turning it in his fist anxiously.

"Here goes nothing," he said.

"Wait!"

His eyes, horribly narrow, turned up at her. Her chest came to life with the punching of her heart like the fists of giants, insistent, incessant, impassioned. The rest of her began to quake with excitement and fear and worry. After hiding from it all day, she wished she could and wondered if she should, just in case, tell him that she thought for a second in a post-orgasmic haze that she was in love with him.

"What if it doesn't work?" she voiced quickly to shut her thoughts up, as if their infinite time was ticking out, "What if we just die? What if you just die and the world falls apart and then I die and then we're just stuck in Oblivion and this was all for nothing?"

Kai's mouth moved into a sad quarter moon of a smile and he blinked.

"Even in Oblivion, I'd find you."

Bonnie stared, and she wanted to kiss him, and she wanted to kill him to get this over with, and she wanted to slip through a wormhole so that her physical placement might match the way her guts seemed to be falling inside her body.

Without any warning, Kai's hand jammed the stake through the plated bone of his chest. The sound of it, and the speed, and the lack of time Bonnie had to adjust to the motion of a lethal object making its way into Kai's heart, made her gasp. Her hand in his made a spastic five for the reflex to do something before she remembered she wasn't supposed to let go, and she hurriedly latched her hand back onto him while she watched his jaw drop in pain. He was only supposed to poke his heart with the wood, not drive right through it, but the growing white in his eyes and the sudden greying of his skin, spreading up from his neck with black veins, carriers of death, hinted at his overestimation. His cheeks swelled with the air of a breath he didn't seem able to exhale. Bonnie panicked and felt the need to do something drastic, to help him, to stop this pain, but just as she noticed his blue irises growing glassy with tears, a horrible wrenching sound shook the sky and seemed to vibrate through her soul.

The memory of finally ascending home from 1994 while the world was getting confused between itself and the 1903 prison world, snowing and then not, altering to Bonnie's utter horror, occurred to her. This was like then. There was a glitch, and it was Kai's dying, and the world around them appeared to be retaliating in a most violent fit. The ground beneath their feet rumbled and all the trees of the forest began to sway in a wayward wind that lacked any real current. As the earth began to shudder, Bonnie found it harder and harder to keep her knees from buckling beneath her and to keep her footing, until the soil itself split in diagonal cracks all around. Instincts were telling her to run, to jump, to play hopscotch over the growing, spreading cracks before they fell between them, and she tugged on Kai's hand, but he was no longer as responsive to instinct as she. His grip in her hers was slackening, his eyes rolling back into his he head as his body slumped.

"Kai!" she screamed. And she heard the beginning of her own scream, before the tail end of it was caught in something that ate sound as the splitting earth beneath her opened its mouth and she was eaten. Then no sound could enter her ears but a rapid whipping of wind, and her vision was ripped away by darkness, and she thought she had done something wrong, that she shouldn't have let the earth eat her up this way, that she had missed her chance and would die by live burial in this too tangible world as it crumbled.

She had just enough sense in her mind and sensation in her stringing nerves to tighten her grip on Kai's hand and make sure that it was still there, and for a second she thought it was. Then as the air tightened and the feeling of the earth's crust whistling past her skin warped into a cold weightlessness, she felt nothing more certain than Kai's hand slipping out of hers. Just as she screamed his name into the voice-devouring cacophony of their plight, her spine bunched up with gravity's collection. Her face and her hands planted into something like ice and all noise vanished.

She turned her head out of the icy substance for air and panted and tried screaming the terror out of her heart. Was this Oblivion? This ice cold hopeless heartache and whiplash? Shaking more than the earth had, Bonnie dug her fingers into the ice and pressed herself up. Gaping and squinting through hundreds of unexpected tears, she saw first her own breath pouring out like a fog from her mouth. And a billion dancing spots floating down from the top of the cinereous sky. _Ash?_ _Vision damage_? Her eyes followed them to the ground, bright white with billions more of them. _Snow_.

She blinked through her tears and focused on her surroundings, finding that she was still in the forest, but all the trees were stark naked, black with wet cold and their spindly branches topped white with snow. Through the many bare trees, it wasn't difficult to hone in on the yellow circle of light in the distance, a beacon of homecoming. The clocktower in the town square.

A loud gong sounded once.

A loud gong sounded twice.

A loud gong sounded thrice.

It was three in the morning in Mystic Falls, and she was alone.

* * *

 **THE END**

 **(of part 2)**

* * *

 **A/N: THANK YOU TO EVERYONE who has stuck by me with this story. It's turning out to be a long one, and I appreciate every one of you for reading, and reviewing, and being awesome. The third and final part of this story has been cooking for a while in my brain, and I hope to get started on it very soon. If you're interested, part 3 already has already been created and it is called Heresy, you can go to my author page and follow it. You will be notified when chapter 2 is posted, which will mean that the first time any content for part 3 is published there will be two chapters to read! Anyway, for you music nerds out there, the official Oblivion playlist will be posted on my Tumblr (link in bio) sometime on 7/1, mountain time lolz. XOXOXOXOXOXO**


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